Five get censored: is children’s literature really that bad?

Say what you like about screen-addiction, but books continue to play a huge role in sparking children’s imagination and shaping their worldview. Many classic children’s authors – Enid Blyton, Dr Seuss, J.M . Barrie – have been criticised for containing, and in some cases have re-written to eliminate, cultural references that offend modern values. But the scandals and offence is not consigned to the classics. David Walliams, who has sold over 37million children’s novels, picture books and short story collections, has been criticised for classism and fat shaming. Recent research has highlighted damaging gender stereotypes in the top 100 kids’ picture books – from The Gruffalo to Dear Zoo. Should children’s books be subject to such stringent controls? How worried should we be about the effect popular children’s books are having on our kids? Or are we over-thinking this – to a six year old, can’t a cat in a hat be just that?

Editor: Matt d’Ancona, Editor and Partner, Tortoise

Invited experts:

Michael Morpurgo OBE
Author, poet and playwright who is known best for his children’s novels. Morpurgo was also the Children’s Laureate from 2003 to 2005

Karen Coats
Professor of Education and Director of the Centre for Research in Children’s Literature at the University of Cambridge

Dr Alice Curry
Founder & CEO of Lantana

A Song of Gladness © 2021 Michael Morpurgo and Emily Gravett – Two Hoots/Macmillan Children’s Books

[SunnyBeetle]

I’m really interested in support for dyslexic and disabled writers and authors. I’m a middle aged dyslexic woman with mild autism. I am a writer who adores children’s stories and young peoples literature. I’ve started work on a little children’s story and one of the main protagonist characters is mixed race. I would be very interested in finding support for my work and to help me develop and bring out new ideas. I applaud any publishing houses that would be open minded in supporting authors from diverse and differently abled backgrounds. Thank you for presenting such an informative video. It will help so many writers and potential authors to get started and finish their writing projects. 🙏🏽🙏🏽