I entirely agree that censorship of children’s literature—or any literature— is an abomination. Words that might be taken as offensive to some children can serve as a teachable moment. For example, Huckleberry Finn was originally intended as a children’s book, yet it is full of the abusive word “nigger.” Does this mean that Mark Twain was a racist? Well—yes and no. Yes in that he internalized the racist attitudes of the ambient culture in which he was raised—antebellum Missouri. But NO in the far more important sense that this book evokes this racist culture in order to discredit it and satirize its blatant moral hypocrisy. If you edit out the racial slurs, you destroy the book altogether. Censorship in any form is a crime against history, a crime against the human spirit.