10 Classic Children's Books That Are Actually Racist

10. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory

Quite possibly author Roald Dahl's most popular children's book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a charming, colourful journey into the mind and titular workplace of Willy Wonka, delighting generations of kids the world over during nighttime readalongs. Unfortunately, Dahl's original text was a little more colourful than most parents would be comfortable with reading to their sprogs these days. You can probably guess where this is going: Oompa Loompas. But why? Aren't the strange little men who run Wonka's factory orange with green hair, and thus surely exempt from accusations of racism? Well, yes - if you're going by their (some would argue definitive) depiction in the 1971 film adaptation. But the Loompas were initially supposed to be black pygmies hailing from "the very deepest and darkest part of the African jungle where no white man had been before." Naturally, the idea of a rich white man forcing black slaves to do his bidding was quickly seen as a rather unsavoury notion and later versions of the text from the 1970s onwards changed the colour of the characters' skin from black to white... only a little too late for the illustrated editions of the book from 1964.