More famous novels are being edited. Publishers are worried that words in older books might upset people, especially children. The authors Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming had their books edited. Dahl wrote "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory;" Fleming wrote the James Bond books. Publishers are using "sensitivity readers" to check for language that might upset minorities. A lot of the language they check was written 50 years ago. It was thought to be okay then.
Publishers edited language in the James Bond books about black characters and women. The language was racist and sexist. The books will now have a warning. This explains the books were written in the 1950s, so they used words that we cannot use today. One edit is the word "enormous" replacing "fat". Using the word "fat" for a person is now a negative term. The UK's prime minister and its future queen said it was wrong to edit the books.
Try the same news story at these levels:
Sensitivity Readers - Level 0, Sensitivity Readers - Level 2 or Sensitivity Readers - Level 3
Sources- https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/james-bond-ian-fleming-books-rewritten-b2289747.html
- https://variety.com/2023/film/news/james-bond-novels-edited-racism-1235536164/
- https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/james-bond-novels-reprinted-racist-language-removed-1234687052/
Make sure you try all of the online activities for this reading and listening - There are dictations, multiple choice activities, drag and drop activities, sentence jumbles, which word activities, text reconstructions, spelling, gap fills and a whole lot more. Please enjoy :-)