"Goosebumps" novelist, R.L. Stine, is the latest author to join the cast of contemporaries whose works are being cleared out to make space for "more inclusive language," according to Deadline.
Currently, Stine is involved in the rewrites with his publisher Scholastic. One edit is noted as changing an alien with "at least six chins," to a being that is "at least six foot six."
In another reissuing, "Bride of the Living Dummy," instead of the ventriloquist dummy, Slappy, knocking a girl unconscious with a "love tap," the villain now uses a magic spell.
In another book, "Attack of the Jack-O'-Lanterns," Deadline outlines that a "character is described as 'tall and good-looking, with dark brown eyes and a great, warm smile. Lee is African-American, and he sort of struts when he walks and acts real cool, like the rappers on MTV videos.' The revised version now calls the character '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.'"
"There have reportedly been more than 100 edits to books like 'Attack of the Jack-O'-Lanterns' and 'I Live in Your Basement!' There are dozens of books in the "Goosebumps" series. The young adult series has been adapted into a television series and a number of films, including two recent features where Jack Black portrayed the author."
But Stine is just one among a growing number whose works are being altered to appease an elusive readership. Last month, media reports began flooding social networks over calls for overhauling Roald Dahl's books. One edit called for changing the gluttonous Agustus Gloop in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" from "enormously fat" to "enormous."
And for Ian Fleming, the author of the rogue British super spy series, whose main character James Bond is now being recast through the editorial eye of "sensitivity readers," according to the publishing company Ian Fleming Publications Ltd, the reason for the changes is because the books were "written at a time when terms and attitudes ... might be considered offensive" for "modern readers."
Speculating on why the call for changing children's or young adults' books has been gaining steam, author Walter Kirn says the intent is likely an attempt to rob children of their natural tendency for honesty.
Speaking on the "America This Week" podcast, Kirn tells his cohost Matt Taibbi, "let's hope that kids stay as perverse and alert to hypocrisy as you describe them being because, in some ways, this whole enterprise is an attempt to pull that out of children — and people."
"It is our technology that allows us this horrible temptation that we've probably always faced to change everything to the liking of the present," Kirn adds. "And because if you take the politics out of this for a second, all it is, is the incredible narcissism of our moment and of a lot of certain people in our culture who want the world to constantly reflect their values or lack of them, and who somehow feel that it is an insult to the human being to have to live in a world in which disagreement and offense is possible."
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.