iRelle

Have you ever noticed the way kids’  entertainment is changing?  Things are getting brighter, blockier and simpler every day. My pet peeve at the moment is how classics that I loved as a child have been changed to appeal more to today’s children. I’m thinking of books in particular, since they were such a big part of my life, but if you want to apply the theory to kids’ TV, just check out episodes of the Muppets or Sesame Street from the 70′s.

Of course, there are the icons that have changed on a massive scale. In my opinion, Winnie the Pooh has never looked so good. Eeyore always was my favourite character, and now he’s even more loveable! And still, I love my classic A.A. Milne books with the yellowing, dogeared pages and the simple brown outline sketches in them. Disney have kept the Classic Pooh as a marketing tool, as well. It’s still there when I need a bit of nostalgia. But it makes me sad that more than 90% of kids who recognise Pooh wouldn’t have a clue about the phrases ‘bump, bump, bump down the stairs’ or ‘You sir, are stuck!’ – two key sentences that crop up regularly in my childhood memories.

Then there’s another favourite from my middle primary years – The Magic Faraway Tree books, by Enid Blyton. When my niece was buying the set of these last year I was appalled. It’s a good example of political correctness gone mad. No more Jo, Bessie and Fanny – Joe has an ‘e’ attached to his name, Bessie is now known as ‘Beth (apparently because it’s a more common shortened form of Elizabeth now – not that Bessie ever gets called Elizabeth anyway!) and Fanny has suffered an additional ‘r’ – she’s now called Frannie. Likewise, cousin Dick is now cousin Rick, and Dame Slap has become Dame Snap, who doesn’t dish out ‘corporal punishment’ any more.

What is so wrong with holding on to history in kid’s fiction? I hardly think any of my generation (or the one before) were so badly scarred by characters with names that could be (snigger) interpreted to mean unmentionable body parts. Everyone knows that Dick is short for Richard – in 20 years, though, it will be almost obsolete. I never had enduring nightmares or grew up to slap people around, even though I must’ve read the story of Dame Slap’s school a score of times. If we change children’s literature to suit modern niceties and cautions, we’re going to lose a big part of the history of our culture. The books were written more than fifty years ago, and that is a part of their allure – they depict a slower, gentler time without video games or the instant gratification of television or a supermarket within distance. They show children who have manners that most modern children lack (oh, don’t I sound like a grouchy grandmother?) and they don’t pander to simple vocabularies or shortening attention spans, and if nothing else they help children understand some of the context of when they were written, and help preserve the history of the English language.

Another classic that has been ‘modernised’, which I only discovered last week, is Nancy Drew. Yep, the girl detective has been turned into the bright, snappy heroine of ‘Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew’ (with cartoony paperback covers and a simplified vocab, to ‘suit younger readers’). I can’t complain about this one as much as I would like to, however – Nancy Drew has been in print since the 1930’s, and has evolved quite a bit since then. In fact, The Clue Crew is only a spinoff for younger readers, featuring an eight-year-old Nancy in ‘middle school’. My favourite stories are the early ones, but in the 1980’s, Nancy drew got a makeover to appeal to (surprise!) a more modern audience. I have a feeling this is where handsome Ned comes in. I’ve probably read more of this generation of stories, and enjoyed them more as a teenager as well. One thing the Nancy Drew series does do well, however, is hold on to the early stories. Even the more recently published tales share a similar style of writing and depth of description as the originals. Nancy Drew with a cell phone does grate against my nerves a little, though.

I guess I’m just a little sad that the fantastic language and contexts of these works is being lost forever. Remember when Christopher Robin belonged in the Nursery, and the doctor made home visits to check out his sneezles and weezles? Remember when cousin Dick got punished for eating someone’s doorknob in the Land of Goodies? Remember when Nancy Drew would be described as ‘sweet’ or ‘chic’ in a pale yellow sundress with a matching cardigan and her top-of-the-range car was an ‘auto’? I’m going to hang on to as many of the books from my childhood as I can – the next generation in my family isn’t going to grow up with Joe, Beth and Frannie!

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