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What are the challenges to book preservation?

April 12, 2025

What poses a greater threat to the book publishing industry: a book being banned or being replaced by AI? Here are some of the problems that authors and illustrators encounter.

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Huckleberry Finn, Pippi Longstocking, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: These children's books are still loved and revered by millions of readers today because they are revolutionary and imaginative.

But they use language that's now being critically examined with today's values and found by many to be sexist, racist, hurtful.   

One publisher has changed the language in Roald Dahl's books to make it more sensitive, taking out descriptions like "ugly" and "fat". They took out the word "crazy" and replaced it with "furious". 

Is that censorship? Or is it showing sensitivity? 

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is perhaps the best example of how the battle lines can shift over what young readers should and should not read. Shortly after its publication in 1885, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was one of the first books to be banned from libraries in Massachusetts. Librarians declared it to be "trash" and "suitable only for the slums." 

In the 1950s, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People criticized the book for promoting racism. The N-word is used 200 times in the book. Now it's increasingly being removed from school curriculums.

So what’s the solution? Leaving in a racial slur? Just deleting it, as if such attitudes never existed? Or rewriting a classic like Huck Finn? 

 

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Arts Unveiled — Experiencing and understanding the art world

Arts Unveiled dives deep into the international creative scene, uncovering new ideas and explaining cultural phenomena that shape our history, present and future. Who are the artists? What are their greatest works of art? And how are they having an impact? Where can we find their exciting projects?