Over a dozen books by one of the world’s most successful children’s authors, RL Stine, have had references to mental health, weight and ethnicity removed or changed.
The titles from Stine’s Goosebumps series, which has sold more than 300 million copies and is the second biggest-selling book series after Harry Potter, have been re-released as sanitised ebooks by the publisher Scholastic.
The children’s horror novels now include more than 100 edits such as a character being described as “cheerful” rather than “plump”, references to villains making victims “slaves” being removed and “crazy” being changed to “silly”.
In one story about aliens abducting large people and eating them, a character described as having “at least six chins” is now “at least six feet six”.
Another book has removed a reference to wolf-whistling while another character has been stripped of descriptions such as resembling a “bowling ball” and having “squirrel cheeks”.
In one of the novels a character wearing a Halloween costume and dressed as “a dark and stormy night” no longer wears black face paint.
The edits, part of a 2018 ebook re-release, are the latest example of novels being changed in an attempt to reduce offence. Last month it emerged that Roald Dahl’s stories had been subject to hundreds of changes including no longer describing Augustus Gloop as “fat” or Mrs Twit as fearfully “ugly”.
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Reissued versions of James Bond novels will also be edited to remove racial references later this year.
The Goosebumps titles were first published in the 1990s and at the height of their success were selling four million copies a month.
Stine, 79, from the US, wrote 62 books in the original series and once said he could write a book in six days.
In 2015, Goosebumps, a film based on the books, starring Jack Black, was released and made $158 million at the box office.
In the re-issued version of the novel Bride of the Living Dummy, Slappy the ventriloquist dummy who comes to life and becomes the pre-eminent villain of the series no longer knocks a girl unconscious with a blow to the head but instead uses a magic spell. The original story, released in 1998, described the blow as a “love tap”, a reference no longer included.
Attack of the Jack-O’-Lanterns, first published in 1996, described a character 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.” However, now he is “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.”
In the same book, which features a storyline about large people being abducted and eaten by aliens, a pair of twins are no longer called “roly-poly” by another character.
Similarly, the line: “All four people were very overweight. The first one, a bald man in a bulging turtleneck sweater, had at least six chins!” has been changed. It now reads: “All four people were huge. The first one, a bald man in a bulging turtleneck sweater, had to be at least six foot six!”
Boys on a summer camp in The Curse of Camp Cold Lake, first released in 1997, no longer wolf-whistle at the camp’s leader. The sentence: “Everyone clapped when she stood up beside Richard. One of the boys gave a loud wolf-whistle” is changed to: “Everyone clapped when she stood up beside Richard. One of the boys whistled loudly.”
A description of her outfit, “tight denim cutoffs and a dark blue midriff top”, no longer features in the book. Meg, one of the camp’s residents, does not look “a little like a bowling ball” or have “squirrel cheeks” in the new release.
In the 1997 edition of I Live in Your Basement!, a monster orders around the protagonist. The publisher has changed “did he really expect me to be his slave — forever?” to “did he really expect me to do this — forever?”
There are many mentions of the word “crazy” removed across the series. Replacements include terms such as “silly”, “wild”, “scary”, “lost her mind” and “stressed”. The term “a real nut” is now “a real wild one” and “nutcase” is “weirdo”.
The book Don’t Go to Sleep!, published in 1997, a boy no longer dismisses Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina as “girl’s stuff” but instead insists it is “not interesting”.
In Say Cheese and Die — Again!, released in 1996, a line about schoolgirls having “crushes” on the headmaster has been deleted.
Stine and Scholastic did not respond to a request for comment.
This article was amended on March 8, 2023, to take account of the following correction: we wrongly said RL Stine had censored some of his Goosebumps books. In fact they were changed without his knowledge.
