Trigger warnings put on classic childrens books at Cambridge University

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

When we read to our children or gc we are always careful to edit bits out we don’t think are suitable. That can also include missing out bits or avoiding books with things we know they are scared of.

I think it is wrong to expurgate such books and I agree with MaizieD students can’t be sheltered from the past forever. These books show us what life was like then, what was acceptable then, and how we have moved on. Not only that but this is also ridiculous because of the cost to the tax payer when there are so many deserving needs.

Surely it's better just to explain that anything written in the past may be very different to what is acceptable today because attitudes have changed. I'm sure every book has something that will offend someone, no need to target every single thing.

With statues, paintings and films being targets of the woke brigade it was only a matter of time before books had their turn. As an only child I found endless entertainment in books and still do in my 70's. Nobody can change history. It's happened, it's been and gone. All we can do is to learn from it and try to build a better future. An alert at the beginning of a book is fine by me but I wouldn't want to see some of the classics banned altogether. People can make up their own minds.

Riverwalk

So what was the point of your thread?

I thought people would be interested and it was a good topic to discuss, there was no hidden agenda. Shame some think otherwise and attack the poster!

No, but surprised is something I'm not SueD

As an aside has anyone else seen that there are alerts on some Amazon films that there is smoking in the film?