A family favorite.
Cigarette excised from kids’ classic
Goodnight smoke, hello indignation
By JOHN MARK EBERHART
The Kansas City Star
Even when there’s no smoke, there’s fire.
A publisher’s decision to digitally delete a cigarette from a photo of a children’s book illustrator is drawing the ire of some book lovers, who smell censorship.
Pete Cowdin, co-owner of Kansas City’s Reading Reptile bookstore, has launched a Web site, www.goodnightreality.com , “solely for the sake of protesting the recent decision by HarperCollins Publishers to censor Goodnight Moon, one of America’s national literary treasures.”
The publisher defends its position.
For decades, some editions of the book by Margaret Wise Brown have featured a photo of the late illustrator Clement Hurd with a cigarette in his right hand. Recently, though, the publisher reprinted tens of thousands of copies of the book that include the shot but not the butt.
Cowdin noticed the change about six weeks ago as he was selling a copy to a customer and telling her about the photo of the smoking illustrator. The customer glanced at the photo. No ciggy.
“This is one of the best-selling kids’ books of all time,” Cowdin said. “There are certain responsibilities and obligations on the part of the … publisher as a steward — not just a marketer — to what I consider an archival document. To go in and do something like that is the pinnacle of arrogance.”
Goodnight smoke, hello indignation
By JOHN MARK EBERHART
The Kansas City Star
Even when there’s no smoke, there’s fire.
A publisher’s decision to digitally delete a cigarette from a photo of a children’s book illustrator is drawing the ire of some book lovers, who smell censorship.
Pete Cowdin, co-owner of Kansas City’s Reading Reptile bookstore, has launched a Web site, www.goodnightreality.com , “solely for the sake of protesting the recent decision by HarperCollins Publishers to censor Goodnight Moon, one of America’s national literary treasures.”
The publisher defends its position.
For decades, some editions of the book by Margaret Wise Brown have featured a photo of the late illustrator Clement Hurd with a cigarette in his right hand. Recently, though, the publisher reprinted tens of thousands of copies of the book that include the shot but not the butt.
Cowdin noticed the change about six weeks ago as he was selling a copy to a customer and telling her about the photo of the smoking illustrator. The customer glanced at the photo. No ciggy.
“This is one of the best-selling kids’ books of all time,” Cowdin said. “There are certain responsibilities and obligations on the part of the … publisher as a steward — not just a marketer — to what I consider an archival document. To go in and do something like that is the pinnacle of arrogance.”
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