10 Classic Children's Books That Are Actually Racist

7. Noddy

Enid Blyton's hugely successful series of children's books (one of them, anyway) about a collection of toys living in Toyland was written between 1942-1963 and boy, does it show its age. Primarily focused on elfen wooden toy Noddy and his friends, the property was popular enough in the UK to spawn no fewer than eight TV adaptations, and is generally pretty tame in its subject matter. Well, except for the thing with the Golliwogs. In Here Comes Noddy Again, the titular hero gets tricked by a group of characters into coming with them into the woods where they proceed to steal his clothes and make off with his car. Those acts were committed by Gollies, representations of the black-faced, incredibly offensive dolls popular with Western children from a less tolerant age. These characters were untrustworthy thugs who have since been replaced in later editions of the books and completely excised in the television shows.