You can still get the 'normal' versions of The Famous Five books, they are still in print, I only picked one up in WH Smith a few days back, a new printing as well.

I have to admit to still reading the odd one every now and then at the age of 28.

It was a few years ago when some editions replaced the name of Aunt Fanny and Dick.

The Faraway Tree books are the worst hit, instead of Fanny we have Franny, Bessie also had her name modernised but it was so bland I care to forget it, and Dame Slap now just gives you a severe ticking off instead of a slap.

and as for Ginger Beer, well it's my favourite non alcoholic drink. I first heard of it via The Famous Five.

Quote: David Carmon @ August 22 2012, 12:41 AM BST

It was a few years ago when some editions replaced the name of Aunt Fanny and Dick.

The Faraway Tree books are the worst hit, instead of Fanny we have Franny, Bessie also had her name modernised but it was so bland I care to forget it, and Dame Slap now just gives you a severe ticking off instead of a slap.

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Why, God? WhyyyyyyYYYYyyyyyyy?

>_<

Because some people love to be patronising, disrespectful, ungrateful, bastard c**ts.

It is that simple.

I just checked my copy of the Faraway Tree (we are so sad!) and it still has the original names. Phew.

I am now remembering all the Enid Blyton books I used to read.....

The Famous Five
The Secret Seven
The Faraway Tree
The Wishing Chair
Mr Meddle
Mr Twiddle
The Adventurous Four
The Adventure Series
Malory Towers (yes I did)
Brer Rabbit

I would burn a copy if the names were changed. Blasphemy

I recently bought ALL the Malory Towers and St. Clare's books. They are still awesome.

Quote: zooo @ August 21 2012, 12:40 PM BST

Enid Blyton's daughters wanted the golliwog stuff removed as they didn't feel it was right to alienate a good proportion of the people who want to read Enid Blyton.
Bloody good on them.

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Please don't tell filthy lies. Blyton's eldest daughter Gillian did NOT want the Golliwogs removed. She lamented their removal but saw it as necessary for the Noddy books to keep being republished in the era of 'political correctness gone mad' rather than being consigned to history. She said there was absolutely nothing racist about them.

Quote: Joyce @ August 21 2012, 10:19 AM BST

Unbelievably, these lovely books are being edited for the kids of today. There are no lashings of ginger beer and not a single threat of a spanking from Uncle Quentin!

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You are not the first to lament this butchery:

Quote: Kenneth @ September 15 2009, 5:36 AM BST

Roger Hargreave's son and widow sold the rights to Mr Men to Chorion for £28 million a few years ago. Chorion also bought the rights to most of Enid Blyton's works for £21.3 million and started replacing the word 'queer' with 'odd', and 'I say' with 'hey' and various other acts of butchery.

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Quote: Kenneth @ March 31 2009, 4:05 AM BST

Her books were not edited (changed for the worse) until the 1990s, so anything published before then was still the original text. Many of the changes are absolutely absurd. Last year I picked up a recent edition of Five Go Down to the Sea and was amazed that a Cornish shopkeeper's colourful accent had been entirely exorcised. The original text went like this:

The four children found the general store and went in. 'Any ice-cream?' said Julian hopefully. But there was none. What a blow! There was orangeade and lemonade, however, quite cool through being kept down in the cellar of the store. 'You be the folks that old Mrs Penruthlan be having in?' said the village shopkeeper. 'She do be expecting of you. Furriners, bain't you?' 'Well, not exactly,' said Julian, remembering that to many Cornish folk anyone was a foreigner who did not belong to Cornwall. 'My mother had a great-aunt who lived in Cornwall all her life. So we're not exactly "furriners", are we?' 'You're furriners all right,' said the bent little shopkeeper, looking at Julian with bird-like eyes. 'Your talk is furrin-like, too. Like that man Mrs Penruthlan had before. We reckoned he was mad, though he was harmless enough.' 'Really?' said Julian, pouring himself out a third lemonade. 'Well, he was a scientist, and if you're going to be a really good one you have to be a bit mad, you know. At least, so I've heard. Golly, this lemonade is good. Can I have another bottle, please?' The old woman suddenly laughed, sounding just like an amused hen. 'Well, well, Marty Penruthlan's got a fine meal ready for you, but seems like you won't be able to eat a thing, not with all that lemonade splashing about in your innards!' 'Don't say you can hear the splashing,' said Julian earnestly. 'Very bad manners, that! Furriners' manners, I'm sure. Well, how much do we owe you? That was jolly good lemonade.' He paid the bill and they all mounted their bicycles once more, having been given minute directions as to how to get to the farm. Timmy set off with them, feeling much refreshed, having drunk steadily for four minutes without stopping. 'I should think you've had about as much water as would fill a horse-trough, Timmy,' Julian told him. 'My word, if this weather holds we're going to look like Red Indians!'

The expurgated edition has stuff like: "You're foreigners, aren't you?" Ridiculous.

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Quote: David Carmon @ August 22 2012, 12:54 AM BST

I would burn a copy if the names were changed. Blasphemy

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Stout fellow. I'm afraid that in new printings of Five Go Off in a Caravan, the circus boy Nobby has been renamed Ned.

Quote: David Carmon @ August 22 2012, 12:41 AM BST

and Dame Slap now just gives you a severe ticking off instead of a slap.

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Dame 'Snap', I believe, the f**ktards at Chorion have renamed her.

Quote: Harridan @ August 21 2012, 1:11 PM BST

Children also learn more from imitation than adults do, so I can read the words 'negroes' and 'savages' 10 times a page (as I am in Robinson Crusoe) without starting to refer to people as negroes or savages, while a child might not be able to make that judgement.

Also, an Agatha Christie book has been edited in that way. "And then there were none" used to be called "Ten Little Niggers".

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Disagree. You seem to assume that children who are sufficiently intelligent to choose to read books are so stupid that they will be easily influenced by language deemed racist. I read Blyton, Twain, Wodehouse et al but didn't start using the word nigger until I started listening to a band named NWA.

As for the Agatha Christie book, several Asian translations have kept the Ten Little Niggers title. Disgracefully, I find these translations rather amusing.

Quote: Renegade Carpark @ August 21 2012, 12:26 PM BST

I haven't seen the new Famous Five books, how are they doing on the old enforced diversity front - are any of them transgendered, gay, black, Islamic or handicapped - and if not, why not?

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Not really. There's a new Disney cartoon and series of books called Famous 5, in which the main characters (except for the dog) are the offspring of the original four children. George's daughter is of Anglo-Indian descent and might be Hindu but I er, caught part of one episode on the Disney Channel a while back and couldn't bear to watch it. Scooby Doo vastly superior.

Quote: David Carmon @ August 22 2012, 12:54 AM BST

I am now remembering all the Enid Blyton books I used to read.....

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You should get Barbara Stoney's biography of Blyton. It's excellent. And look out for a Blyton book called The Six Bad Boys, which was a rare attempt at social realism, poverty, parental neglect and delinquency. All rather tame by today's standards but still an interesting read.

Quote: zooo @ August 21 2012, 12:40 PM BST

The versions with golliwogs are still available for those who prefer it with.

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Really? The Noddy books are now being published with the golliwogs restored? Or do you mean "still available via eBay and second-hand/antiquarian bookstores"?

It's not so much kids will use the words because they learn them from books.

But rather when they are used in such a normal, respectable setting. Then those words will achieve a level of normalacy and respectability.

I can tell you from personal experience that this is the case.

Quote: sootyj @ August 22 2012, 10:43 AM BST

It's not so much kids will use the words because they learn them from books.

But rather when they are used in such a normal, respectable setting. Then those words will achieve a level of normalacy and respectability.

I can tell you from personal experience that this is the case.

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I read all of the Famous Five, Secret Seven, Malory Towers, St. Clares, R Mystery series (Barney), of Adventure series (Kiki the parrot), Mystery series (Five Find Outers and Dog) and many others - and a lot of the language never struck me as mainstream normal. I never took to telling kindly girls: "You really are a little brick!" The gender stereotyping never rubbed off on me either.

And try as we might to shield children from ever being exposed to such heinous terms as nigger, chink, wop, dago, spic, nip, limey, honkey, hebey, paddy, mick, coon, yid, slope, slanty, hook-nose, chog, ching-chong and skip, perhaps it is better they first encounter them in books and/or be taught they are nowadays unacceptable racial epithets, rather than learning them in playground jokes or taunts or bullying.

When I was very young, an aunt of mine had a black labrador named Nigger. Toward the end of Five Go Off to Camp, George emerges from a train tunnel shaft "as black as a nigger with soot". And Bertie Wooster disguised himself as a "nigger minstrel" in one of the Jeeves books. Yet I never went about thinking it was normal or acceptable to call people "nigger". I attribute this to common sense and good parental guidance. Better that children are taught respect, rather than books butchered. Asia is full of racist jibes that sometimes turn terribly violent but this doesn't stem from old books for kids.

Because Kenneth you're an intelligent thoughtful man.

Society is not a flat plain where we all think and act equally.

Who killed The Famous Five? The Fantastic Four?

Ooh nice pun!

Quote: Kenneth @ August 22 2012, 11:42 AM BST

When I was very young, an aunt of mine had a black labrador named Nigger.

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Yep, my mum and her sisters called their black cat the same and thought nothing of it. None of them could see why I couldn't do it too. However, I have got a black cat called Othello, purely because of the ethnicity of the Shakespeare character.

Let's not forget Mr Pink Whistle. He was my favourite as a small child. I still have a Valley of Adventure and an Island of Adventure book somewhere. I've probably got two full boxes full of Enid Blytons.

Do children use words they read in books to taunt other kids? Some will, some won't. No-one can say it's one way or the other.

They'd have heard the words, they always do.

But when the book in the library or the classroom has them it adds respectability to them.

Quote: sootyj @ August 22 2012, 12:17 PM BST

They'd have heard the words, they always do.

But when the book in the library or the classroom has them it adds respectability to them.

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Yeah...I get that, but there is also parental input to consider and the influences their particular social circle has upon them. Say...a child grows up in a family where racist name-calling is a regular thing. They could read a book with 'bad words' in it and be further encouraged. Their parents' behaviour would be reinforced and very likely, as you say, become seemingly respectable. However, if they grow up in a family where their parents and siblings are careful to explain what's 'okay' and what's not, they will be more inclined to read 'bad words' and see them as just that...'bad words' that should be left where they are...on the page. The examples they've already been set will help them make their own informed decisions as to whether these words are acceptable to say or not.