Unnecessary erasures
CLEMENT HURD should get to keep his cigarette. Hurd, the illustrator of the famous children's book ''Goodnight Moon," died in 1988. But for years, copies of the book have featured a photograph of him with a big smile and a cigarette between two fingers. In the photograph, the cigarette is as casual a part of Hurd as the watch on his wrist.
But when publisher HarperCollins was preparing for the 60th anniversary of ''Goodnight Moon," which will be in 2007, officials decided that the cigarette had to go. With permission from Hurd's son, the cigarette was digitally removed for the printing of 70,000 copies. A spokeswoman said the cigarette would send the wrong message to children and did not have to be there.
It's an understandable but unfortunate mistake. Hurd's son told The New York Times he felt pushed into approving the change. Children's booksellers are objecting. Some parents find the erasure silly. And it seems as if most readers haven't noticed the cigarette or haven't cared if they did.
Anyone who does notice has easy recourse. Adults can spot the cigarette as an artifact from a receding culture. And they can tell children that once upon a time people thought it was OK and even glamorous to smoke cigarettes -- but now that's a medically refuted fairy tale.
The book itself is charming and timeless, but also a piece of history. It comes from a time when cigarettes and ashtrays were ordinary living room accessories. The story itself features an old-fashioned, land-line telephone. And there's nary a beeping, blinking electronic toy in sight. This is the allure of literature: It's an attic full of forgotten appliances, professions, furniture, and hairstyles.
Even the youngest children should be exposed to this context. And adults should build the habit of refusing to erase history, from big events to small details. Otherwise too much is vulnerable. Facts are changed to protect children. Information that should be public is branded classified. Air-brushing becomes acceptable. Not knowing grows into a virtue, with unspoken Orwellian consequences.
Where would the alterations stop? Would Pippi Longstocking have to have a stay-at-home stepmom? Today, if there were a plucky, 9-year-old girl living alone in an old house, she would quickly be swept up by the Department of Social Services. Should books featuring Harriet the Spy, Peter Pan, and the Cat in the Hat all include stern warnings about the illegalities of trespassing?
No. Best to leave children's literature as is, reflecting a world that is typically and sometimes destructively imperfect. Sanitize books, and children will likely only wonder why adults are bent on denying the obvious.
