It's perplexing, though, given that "deliberately cruel and nasty" was pretty much Dahl's brand. Of all the writers to try to make inoffensive and inclusive!
@ladymondegreen They don't care about being "inoffensive" or "inclusive," though. They care about making money, which is why they're doing it.
Right-wing activists love this stuff because they get people all worked up about "the woke mob" supposedly "forcing" something to change when no thinking perseon has said anything at all on the topic. It makes for lots of right-wing columns.
I get that. But I'm talking about the potential effect, not the corporations' motives. Dahl is so intrinsically cruel and grotesque that it's hard to imagine that changing a few words here and there would make the books any more saleable. There are writers you could effectively bowdlerize, but Dahl is not one of them.
In all the foofaraw, has anybody pointed out the changes made to the illustrations and descriptions of the Oompa Loompas in the 1970s?