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Puffin Books, the children's imprint of the British publisher Penguin Books, expurgated various works by British author Roald Dahl in 2023, sparking controversy. Dahl has received criticism for anti-Semitic comments and his use of racial and sexual stereotypes. Reviewing Australian author Tony Clifton's God Cried, a picture book about the siege of West Beirut during the 1982 Lebanon War, Dahl used several antisemitic tropes, including claiming that the United States was "dominated by Jewish financial institutions". Following Dahl's death in 1990, multiple works of his were examined further, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Witches, and Dahl's short story collection Switch Bitch. Dahl's comments received renewed attention in the years leading up to the controversy, with his family issuing an apology for his comments in 2020. During his lifetime Dahl had enjoined his publishers not to "so much as change a single comma in one of my books", but on 19 February 2023 Puffin Books announced it had hired sensitivity readers over the span of three years to assess Dahl's works, rereleasing his work with multiple changes regarding Dahl's depiction of race, sex, and character. A report from British newspaper The Telegraph determined that Puffin Books altered hundreds of passages in Dahl's work, including in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, Fantastic Mr Fox, and The Witches. Facing backlash from readers and authors, on 23 February Puffin Books announced that Dahl's original publications would be released alongside the expurgated versions as "The Roald Dahl Classic Collection", but did not retract the revisions. Various authors, politicians, and organisations have provided commentary on the controversy. In the following month it was announced that the works of Enid Blyton (author of The Famous Five) and Ian Fleming (author of James Bond) would be expurgated as well, and it was revealed that R. L. Stine's Goosebumps had already been expurgated, without the author's knowledge or consent. Background Roald Dahl was a British author of children's literature. Dahl's works are published by Puffin Books, the children's imprint of the British publisher Penguin Books, while the rights to his works are managed by the Roald Dahl Story Company. In September 2021, streaming service Netflix acquired the Roald Dahl Story Company. Dahl's comments and writing have received criticism. In the August 1983 issue of the Literary Review, a review by Dahl of Tony Clifton's God Cried appears, in which he writes that the United States is "so utterly dominated by the great Jewish financial institutions" and asks, "must Israel, like Germany, be brought to her knees before she learns how to behave in this world?" In a 1990 interview with The Independent, Dahl said that he'd become antisemitic, "in as much as that you get a Jewish person in another country like England strongly supporting Zionism". Characters in Dahl's works have been criticised for perceived racist and sexist stereotypes. In 1972, children's book author Eleanor Cameron compared the Oompa-Loompas in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to African slaves in an article for The Horn Book Magazine. These statements were echoed further following Dahl's death in 1990, with book critic Michael Dirda accusing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Witches of racism and misogyny, respectively, in an article for The Washington Post. In the Jewish-American and feminist publication Lilith, Michele Landsberg argued that "evil, domineering, smelly, fat, ugly women are [Dahl's] favorite villains". Dahl's short story collection Switch Bitch was criticised for its crude and disturbing themes. In 1973, Dahl rewrote Oompa-Loompas, making them white in skin colour. In 2020, Dahl's family apologised for his antisemitic comments. Revisions On 19 February 2023, Puffin Books announced that it would be altering the language used in many of Dahl's books to expurgate what they deemed derogatory words and passages. The process took approximately three years, and was conducted in association with Inclusive Minds, a collective that promotes accessibility and inclusivity. A report from British newspaper The Telegraph found hundreds of removed or altered words and passages. Some changes focused on race and ethnicity. Numerous changes were made to the use of colour descriptions, whether in reference to skin colour (a character having a face "white with horror", becoming "agog with horror") or otherwise (a person saying something "darkly", which is changed to "mysteriously"). References to other countries, regions, and ethnicities were sometimes removed or significantly altered, as were references to cultural practices, culturally-tied words, and indigenous lifestyles. For example, a character "hopping about like a dervish" in Fantastic Mr Fox became "like a frog". Other changes focused on sex and gender. The word queer (in the sense of "strange") was regularly removed, and most references to "men and women", "boys and girls", "mothers and fathers", and similar were replaced with equivalent gender-neutral words and phrases such as "parents" or "siblings". Similarly, masculine pronouns were changed in certain general circumstances, such as the plan in The Witches to catch "the catspringer in his burrow" becoming "its burrow". In some cases, references to gender were changed, including changing the character of "Small Fox" in Fantastic Mr Fox from male to female. References to roles traditionally associated with men or women were often altered, and some insults directed at women were often softened (such as "ugly old cow" becoming "ghastly old shrew" in The Twits). The stereotype of female shrillness was sometimes obscured. References to behavioral differences between men and women were also removed or altered, including the removal of some dialogue in The BFG about girls' and boys' dreams ("If I is giving a girl's dream to a boy, even if it was a really whoppsy girl's dream, the boy would be waking up and thinking what a rotbungling grinksludging old dream that was.") Other changes focused on appearance and disabilities. Many references to people, especially women, being physically attractive or unattractive were removed. The word fat was regularly removed, being replaced with terms such as enormous or large, as were references to short height and similar descriptions. References to characters being old was sometimes altered or removed. The words crazy and mad, along with similar words, were regularly removed, as were some descriptions of low intelligence and mental disorders, such as removing a line from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory about a character being "shut up in some disgusting sanatorium". References to physical deformity or disability, including deafness, were also commonly removed or altered. References to lack of privilege were sometimes altered, such as removing a description of Sophie as "a little orp.... Discover the Christina Dalcher popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Christina Dalcher books.