“Goosebumps” is the latest franchise to undergo changes for sensitivity ahead of reprinting. According to UK's The Sunday Times (via Deadline), author RL Stine has edited more than a dozen of his “Goosebumps” books to change references to mental health, weight, or ethnicity.
According to the report, the novels have undergone more than 100 edits. Those edits include references to a character being "cheerful" rather than "plump", changing "crazy" to "silly", and completely removing references to villains making victims "slaves”.
The report also lists some examples from specific titles. Notably, the reissue of 1998's “Bride of the Living Dummy” changes the ventriloquist dummy from knocking a girl unconscious using a "love tap" to a magic spell instead while the 1996 book “Attack of the Jack-O'-Lanterns” changes the description of one character, Lee, from being like "the rappers on MTV videos" to "tall and good-looking, with brown skin, dark brown eyes and a great, warm smile. He sort of struts when he walks and acts real cool".
In “The Curse of Camp Cold Lake” from 1997 the boys of summer camp are no longer described as giving “a loud wolf-whistle” and are now said to have “whistled loudly”. In “Say Cheese and Die – Again!”, schoolgirls were described as having “crushes” on the headmaster but that line has now been deleted. And in “Don’t Go to Sleep!”, a boy called Anna Karenina “girl’s stuff” but now says it’s “not interesting”.
“Goosebumps” is just the latest series to get sensitivity revisions. Earlier this month, it was announced that some books in the “James Bond” library will be edited to remove racist content for upcoming reprints and will also include a disclaimer noting that "This book was written at a time when terms and attitudes which might be considered offensive by modern readers were commonplace. A number of updates have been made in this edition, while keeping as close as possible to the original text and the period in which it is set".
The primary difference between the Dahl – my post "Updating Roald Dahl's Language" published February 18, 2023 – and "Bond" edits is that Stine is the original author of the “Goosebumps” books and is doing the edits himself.
“Goosebumps” is a series of children's horror fiction that first debuted in 1992 with the novel, “Welcome to Dead House”. Since then, the series has sold more than 400 million books worldwide and is the second best-selling book series in history after JK Rowling's “Harry Potter”. The series has spawned various spin-off series, a television series, and even feature films.
But in a Deadline update on March 06, Stine had tweeted: “…I’ve never changed a word in Goosebumps. Any changes were never shown to me”. 😒
Scholastic shared a statement regarding the edits to the children’s horror book series.
“For more than 30 years, the Goosebumps series has brought millions of kids to reading through humor with just the right amount of scary”, read the statement. “Scholastic takes its responsibility seriously to continue bringing this classic adolescent brand to each new generation. When re-issuing titles several years ago, Scholastic reviewed the text to keep the language current and avoid imagery that could negatively impact a young person’s view of themselves today, with a particular focus on mental health”.
In fact, what Penguin did to Roald Dahl’s books created so much backlash that the publisher said they would make available unrevised versions of Dahl’s books later this year under the banner “The Roald Dahl Classic Collection”, giving readers the option to choose which one to read.😀
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