People are busy trying to tidy up the past, instead of owning up to it. Some books are either being banned altogether or edited into bland palatability.
A textbook publisher (in a state far to the south of Maine) made some chicken-hearted changes to a paragraph about Rosa Parks.
Parks helped spark the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 by refusing to give up her seat to a white man. The description of the situation went from “She was told to move to a different seat because of the color of her skin. She did not. She did what she believed was right.” to this:
“She was told to move to a different seat. She did not. She did what she believed was right.” This removes the topic of racial prejudice altogether, leaving children with no clue why she was told to change seats.
Here, on the other hand, is an interesting instance of non-tidying up.
The other day I was listening to “Five on a Treasure Island,” one of the Famous Five books by Enid Blyton. I’ve written about the Five before. If you missed that earlier column, here is a quick recap:
The Famous Five is a series of 21 children’s adventure novels that were published from 1942 to 1963. It is one of the best-selling children’s series ever.
The five main characters consist of two boys, two girls, and a dog. They are British.
Julian is 12; Dick, 11; and Anne, 10. They are brothers and sister. Georgina, their cousin, is somewhere in that same age range. She wears her hair short, dresses like a boy, and prefers to be called George. The children go, unsupervised, on wild adventures and must use their ingenuity, cooperative spirit, and grit to survive.
Unlike children’s novels today, there are no witches or wizards, no time travel, no intergalactic visitors, no magic spells, no fantastical beasts. Despite this lack of modern literary necessities, the Famous Five books are fun and exciting.
The one I was listening to is the first in the series. As you might suspect, language has changed a bit since 1942, some words being replaced, and others taking on new meanings. For example, in the original edition of “Five on a Treasure Island,” the trunk of a car is called the luggage hole. This was updated to the more common British term, boot.
The audiobook, narrated by Jan Francis, was recorded in 1997. However, it seems that Francis was reading, not from an edition of the late 90s, but from some earlier edition.
It has references to spankings (rather than “tellings off” as in later editions) and is sprinkled with older sayings such as “putting the call through” for a telephone connection and the repeated use of the word queer in the sense of odd. These, I think, add rather than detract from the tale.
The audiobooks – and the books, themselves – are a joy. However, if you are intent on raising bland, unthinking children, perhaps you should avoid the Famous Five and stick to tidier books.
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