Trigger warnings put on classic childrens books at Cambridge University

Having spent nearly 45 minutes in Waterstones helping my 11 year old GS wade through hundreds of books for 9-12 year olds I doubt there is any need to read any of the books from my childhood. I loved The Famous Five but I wouldn't expect the GC to read them 65 years later, or understand how we were.

I suppose we will reach a point where videos of wild animals living their normal natural lives receive warnings of harmful content if they include scenes of them cruelly cuffing their young round the ears if they are disobedient instead of reasoning with them and explaining how they should behave, viciously fighting off interlopers trying to muscle in on their territory and food supply instead of generously sharing with all comers, or even committing the cardinal sin of killing prey instead of eating grass.

We are already near this sanitised view of animal life with some pet owners feeding their carnivore pets nothing but vegetarian or vegan food or believing that their cat wouldn't dream of killing a fluttering bird.

I started showing the grandchildren Swiss Family Robinson which I remembered as being a family-friendly movie. I was a bit unsettled by the animals being forced to swim in the sea during the shipwreck, but later on I had to switch off. There was a full-blown fight between two great danes and a tiger with real animals. I couldn't bear to see it. I know in the past there was little or no consideration given to animal welfare in movie making, but I was shocked to think I had watched this years ago. I think as a child you are not aware of the process of movie making and don't realise what you are seeing is real, it's just part of the fantasy.

I realised how my attitudes had changed when watching a box set of an old TV programme I always enjoyed - in one episode there had been a theft and the only black person in the room was automatically accused. I am sure when I first watched it I would have thought nothing of it but re-watching it I felt really uncomfortable.

Elegran if people want to watch wildlife programmes of animals hunting their prey that is one thing. It's the real world. I agree there should be a warning there will be scenes of killing though. But old movies featuring animal cruelty is a different matter. We never thought about it in the past, but it's there in front of our eyes if we look. Maybe CGI isn't such a bad thing after all.

As long as the date of publication remains in books, why the need for further preamble? The past is a different place: history.

The Water Babies was probably one of my favourite books as a child, I remember rereading it all the time. I read it to my own children when they were quite young and they loved it too. Of course, it was written in the 19th century when practices such as sending little boys up chimneys would be hard to get a modern day western child's head around, but life was harsh then for the poor and still is in many countries.

I, like many of my generation was a great fan of Enid Blyton read most of her stuff. I think I did pick up on the fact that the baddies in some of "The Adventure" and maybe" Famous Five" series were alluded to as "dark swarthy foreigners" subliminally I think it reinforced the notion that half my family were dark swarthy foreigners, but was I bothered? I don't think so.

My children loved Roald Dahl, didn't really latch on to Enid Blyton, she was of her time of course, as most authors are. RD did have a cruel streak at times, albeit very funny. My granddaughter likes David Wallams but his books are nothing like as clever as RD's imo.

It’s good to watch these films or read these books if it makes us aware how different attitudes were then. It helps us understand what society was like.

Further down the line my kids, like most of their teen generation listened to music with completely unacceptable lyrics. Contentious content in the books mentioned pales into insignificance compared to some of the abysmal stuff they can access on line from quite an early age.

I think it's quite arbitrary as well. I find some of David Walliams books quite unpleasant and really sexist at times. But no warnings on his books.

Any book from the past has to be viewed within the accepted norms of that time - that is often what makes it so interesting. We should be able to see how far we have come! I wouldn't read Cinderella or such now without adding that waiting for your handsome prince isn't really necessary these days!

After seeing the books my GC are reading somehow I don't think we need to bother.
Little Black Sambo was on the no list when mine were little and they found copies and loved them.
Are we putting Dickens on the list Fagin etc? Or Shakespeare with Othello. I'm sure my GC would love to watch Hamlet or a Christmas Carol for the horror. Also the Brothers Grim and Hans Anderson and so it goes on.
They need to know what the past was like and then see why people are changing their opinions now.

I noticed the Smoking warning too Meryl.
Drinking alcohol will be next!

It doesn't do children any harm to realise that values and norms change as time passes.
I wouldn't mind betting that in the future, all the books on gender change get censored or banned.
What we think of as correct in today's society doesn't mean our current values trump all values from the past.

Cambridge University are custodians of these novels, not a censor. If supposedly intelligent Academics cannot tell the difference between what was acceptable then, is not acceptable now. History happened, good or bad, and that’s what it is. Next they’ll be censoring the Bible.

I suppose if it's a book someone's unfamiliar with there's nothing wrong with drawing attention to the subject matter.

Books that reflect a certain time in history are not educating the current young generation that what happened then would or should be acceptable now.

When I think of some of the computer games children play I can't help but think more time spent reading would be a bad thing.

So Waterstones is apparently promoting 'woke' stories instead which look pretty awful:
Waterstone's go woke

Er some of those look really good. The display pictired includes books by Marcus Rashford and Michelle Obama. How are they awful.

I don't think they are censoring anything, they are simply putting in trigger warnings so the sort of content is known before anyone starts to read. It happens before TV dramas.

I can thoroughly recommend both Becoming and Dreams From My Father by the Obamas. I have both as audible books read by the respective authors which I think adds something.

In the history of this country and most others, there have been wars in which many people have been killed in horrific circumstances, both soldiers and civilians. Does it need to be pointed out to everyone reading factual accounts or fictitious novels about the era that distressing events are included which are not to be taken as recommendations of how to behave, or copied?

Surely it is obvious to anyone with an average level of ethics and/or sheer common sense that they should not copy such behaviour? Or is it similar to "but no-one told me that putting my poodle into the microwave to dry off after a bath was a bad idea" ?

Are we more tolerant and loving than previous generations ? I’m not so sure and it must be comforting to think we are. In many ways I think we are every bit as bad.

No, we are not. We choose other things to be tolerant or intolerant of than we used to, but our average level of tolerance hasn't increased.

I’m thinking our tolerance level is a lot lower than it used to be. Possibly a result of stresses involved in our more hectic lives or the over crowding in many of the places we live in.

Elegran

No, we are not. We choose other things to be tolerant or intolerant of than we used to, but our average level of tolerance hasn't increased.

Tolerance has changed. We are meant to be tolerant of all the 'woke' ideas now. I hesitate to give my true opinion on a public forum.