Posted by Harry Miller on January 24, 1999 at 03:43:17:
In Reply to: Re: AR's bad language (NB: some offensive language) posted by wiliiaam tozer on January 22, 1999 at 10:22:49:
What a strange thread. It goes on and on with everybody agreeing with
each other and seeming to protest too much. On a very practical level,
I want to start giving these books to my 8 year old god-daughter who
has a black father and a white mother. I am certainly not going to
give her Peter Duck or Missee Lee, but as these are far down my list of
favourites I'm not too concerned. As for The Big Six, I would be very
happy to find an expurgated text. In this book. the single reference is
just a "throw-away" line with no relevance to story. I agree that AR's
attitude toward other races was probably more enlightened than
the average person of his time but to stop at this point in the story
for a little sociological chat seems a bit much. It's easy enough to
edit the offending word when reading aloud but I don't want her to see
it when she reads it for herself.