Hello readers! It’s time for the second installment of the Problematic Authors series. This time, we are going over another children’s author.
This series isn’t about telling you what you should or shouldn’t read. Everyone has to make their own decisions and decide what’s appropriate for themselves or their kids, if applicable. This is just my opinion on when separating art from the artist works for me, when it doesn’t, and how the age of the audience changes my perspective.
I’d love to discuss different types of problematic elements in this series. For example, racism, sexism, graphic violence in children’s books, and other things. The idea is to focus on authors whose books contain problematic elements, not just those who have done something outside of their books, as I wouldn’t need to read their books to discuss what they’ve done.
Let me know if you have an author you’d like me to feature! I have quite a few ideas written down, but you might have something in mind as you are reading, and I’d love to hear it.
Roald Dahl is an interesting case for me because he is very different from the previous author we talked about. Dr. Seuss was an author I grew up reading, but I never read a single Roald Dahl book until I was much older.
I grew up loving Roald Dahl’s movies, though I didn’t really know that they were connected by the author. I had Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory on VHS, I watched The Witches way too many times, and of course, Matilda is an iconic movie that we all know and love. I didn’t actually read his books until I was an adult, and reading them was a very different experience. Seeing the darker humor, bizarre moral extremes, and harmful stereotypes that are sometimes present gave me a completely new perspective on stories I had once loved on screen.
I was reading through all of his books quite a few years ago now, and stopped when I landed on a book that was too much for me. The books I read before are The Witches, Matilda, BFG, Magic Finger, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.
I could probably go over nearly every book I had read from him before for one reason or another, but I decided to condense it down to just a few. I decided to revisit the Charlie Bucket books and The Magic Finger, and read two new ones, being The Twits and George’s Marvellous Medicine. I’m also going to talk a little bit about the adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was published in 1964. The original publication of the book had a depiction of the Oompa Loompas where they were African pygmys, who were paid in cocoa beans.
This depiction was later changed in 1973 after the NAACP criticized it during the filming of the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. In the original version, the Oompa-Loompas were described as coming from Africa, inspired by Dahl’s travels in Kenya and Tanzania.
Real-life African pygmy groups are a collection of ethnicities native to Central Africa. They are known for being relatively short in stature and having distinct cultural traditions, but not all members have dwarfism. These groups have rich and diverse histories, and the term pygmy is considered outdated or sensitive in some contexts.
Dahl stated he never meant to depict Oompa Loompas in a racist or stereotypical manor, and therefore changed their appearance. The Oompa Loompas we know now are from Loompaland. In the books, they are white with gold hair, and are knee-high.
Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator
Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator was published in 1972, and was previously the last book I had read by him before I wrote this post. I didn’t like the humor in the book that centers on making a joke out of names, especially those who are Chinese.
In this book, Willy Wonka, Charlie, and his family are shot into space in the elevator. While in space, the United States President takes notice of them, and so we follow his perspective for a bit.
The President is depicted as somewhat airheaded and quite helpless, as is his cabinet. For example, his Vice President is described as having been his nanny when he was a child, and other officials perform absurd tasks, like balancing the national budget on their heads. For context, the President at the time was Richard Nixon.
During one chapter, the President speaks to Premier Yugetoff from Russia, “Now see here, Yugetoff. You get those astronauts of yours off that space hotel of ours this instant! Otherwise, I’m afraid we’re going to have to show you just where you get off, Yugetoff.”
Later on the phone with Premier Yugetoff, he states, “Have you looked closely at those astronauts in the glass box? I myself cannot see them too clearly on my TV screen, but one of them, the little one with the pointy beard and the top hat, has a distinctly Chinese look about him.”
This reminds the President of the Prime Minister of China, and he speaks to a few different Chinese people. He even picks up a porcelain phone to call the head of the Chinese Republic. Here are a few quotes from the next few pages.
“It is very difficult to phone people in China, Mr. President,…the countries so full of Wings and Wongs, every time you wing you get the wong number.”
“Okay Chu-On-Dat. Let me speak to Premier How-Yu-Bin.”
“If you don’t call them off right away i’m going to tell my chief of the Army to blow them all Sky High! So chew on that, Chu-on-dat.”
These quotes illustrate Dahl’s use of humor based on physical features, names, and national stereotypes. While they reflect his whimsical, exaggerated style, modern readers recognize these jokes as racially and culturally insensitive.
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory came out in 1971, and was a direct adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We got a remake of the movie called Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in 2005, along with the prequel Wonka in 2023.
In December, I watched a video titled The Troubled History of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, which details the extensive behind-the-scenes conflict during the film’s production. Roald Dahl initially insisted on writing the screenplay himself, but disagreements between Dahl and the studio quickly arose. Ultimately, Dahl came to despise nearly every aspect of the finished film, from the added musical numbers to the casting of Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka.
The reason this movie is important to discuss here is the significant changes the studio made to the Oompa Loompas.
As mentioned earlier, the Oompa Loompas in the original book were described as pygmys, imported by Wonka and paid in cocoa beans. By the early 1970s, this kind of depiction was already being widely challenged. The Civil Rights Movement had forced many industries, including film and publishing, to reckon with racist stereotypes that had long been treated as acceptable.
The movie revamped the entire characterization of Oompa Loompas, including their looks and backstory. Rather than portraying them as enslaved people taken from Africa, the film recast them as fantastical, fictional beings. These changes were clearly an attempt to remove the most overtly racist elements of the original depiction.
Roald Dahl strongly opposed these changes. Unlike Dr. Seuss, who later expressed regret for harmful imagery and revised his work, Dahl resisted altering the Oompa Loompas in ways that acknowledged or corrected the harm in their original portrayal.
Most people, if they think of what an Oompa Loompa is like, are most likely imagining the depiction of them in the movie in the 70s.
The Magic Finger
The Magic Finger was published in 1966 and follows a young girl who possesses a magical ability that manifests when she becomes angry. When she feels intense rage, she quite literally “sees red,” and whatever she points her finger at is affected by her magic.
The girl really hates her neighbors because they go out hunting every day for sport. She gets so upset with them that she uses her magic on the family.
Now this is where it gets bizarre. She not only turns the family into geese with people heads, but the geese are turned into people with geese heads. The geese then move into the family’s home, take possession of their belongings, and eventually pick up the family’s guns to hunt the Greggs for sport.
It’s not difficult to identify the intended moral of the story. The book is clearly meant to teach a lesson about consequences and to reflect Roald Dahl’s own distaste for animal cruelty and trophy hunting. I don’t disagree with that message, and I also find hunting for sport deeply uncomfortable. This shows a pattern of disturbing punishment-based storytelling in Dahl’s work.
The Twits
This is another book by Dahl I’d never read before. The Twits was published in 1980 and follows a couple named Mr. and Mrs. Twit. During the course of the book, they torment and prank one another and other beings in the story.
In the chapter Hugtight Sticky Glue, Mr. Twit covers a tree in glue to trap birds so they can eat them.
In the chapter Geat Upside Down Monkey Circus, Mr. Twit forces a family of monkeys to stay upside down constantly to train for his dream circus act. They are forced to train like this for 6 hours a day, even if they faint or become otherwise ill. If the monkeys refused to do this, they would be beaten with a stick by Mrs. Twit.
Much like The Magic Finger, the book relies heavily on cruelty, humiliation, and suffering for its humor. While the Twits are clearly meant to be villains, the story still asks child readers to laugh at extended scenes of punishment and abuse, especially toward animals.
George’s Marvellous Medicine
This was one that I hadn’t read before, but I was reading online about this book containing an actual ingredient list for a medicine. I decided to grab a copy from the library. The one I am using was published in 2016.
George’s Marvellous Medicine follows George, who creates a medicine for his grandmother with random ingredients in his house, and the mixture gives her magical abilities. In total, I counted 32 separate items, many of which are toxic, corrosive, or unsafe for human consumption. I created the graphic below so readers can clearly see the extent of what is being described.
Seeing all of these ingredients together highlights how dangerous this mixture would be in real life. Unlike fantasy potions made from fictional elements, these are real household and industrial products that many children could access.
This concern is not hypothetical. There have been documented cases of children attempting to recreate George’s medicine, and I also found multiple worksheets and classroom activities online, including on Twinkl, Teachers Pet, and Pinterest, encouraging children to invent their own versions. While these are typically framed as creative exercises, the premise itself raises serious safety concerns.
The National Library of Medicine published an article about all these ingredients and what would really happen to you if you were to ingest or mix them.
Why I No Longer Read Dahl
When I was making my way through Dahl’s books, I didn’t know any of his backstory. Magic Finger was the first one that shocked me, but it was unlike any of his other books. I thought it was just a fluke. I was completely caught off guard by those tasteless jokes about Chinese names in Charlie and the Great Game.
It was never a one-off. He had a pattern of behavior and actively created harm inside and outside of his books.
When reading more about him online, he was also a raging antisemite. In an interview in 1983, he had stated, “Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason.” He also spread misinformation about Jewish people controlling the media. He had so much hate in his heart, and he died with all of it.
Final Thoughts
Understanding who Dahl was fundamentally changed how I viewed his books. His stories no longer felt merely dark, mischievous, or provocative. Instead, they revealed an underlying hostility that he carried throughout his life and into his writing. Knowing this, I can no longer separate the art from the artist, nor can I feel comfortable recommending his work, particularly to children.
Going back and reading some of his works that I hadn’t before for this post really solidified to me why I quit reading his books.
Let me know your thoughts on all of this in the comments! I know it was a long one.
The next author is one who revolutionized the mystery genre.
Happy blogging and bookish adventures! 📚🦒✨
This post was created by Allison Wolfe for www.allithebookgiraffe.com and is not permitted to be posted anywhere else.
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