So, the description was redrafted and read:
Francelia Butler) were troubled, I would have to alter it.” Travers decided to alter the descriptions and dialogues in this section of the story because “ if even one Black child were troubled, or she (Dr. It smiled at the children as its Mother spoke. On the knee of the negro lady sat a tiny black picaninny with nothing on at all. But to make up for this they wore a great many beads – some hung round their heads just below great crowns of feathers (….). Her embarrassment being caused by the words “ Negro lady” and “ a picaninny baby” as well as the picaninny language used by the characters.īeneath the palm trees sat a man and a woman, both quite black all over and with a very few clothes on. Travers how embarrassed she felt when reading the story to the black students in her class. Travers’s attention in 1971 by her friend Dr. The major issue with “Bad Tuesday” was brought to P.L. Now, was the original story racist? This is the question that will be explored in this blogpost. In this last version of the story, which is now in print, the Banks children meet a Polar Bear, a Hyacinth Macaw, a Panda and a Dolphin. With a stroke of her pen, she changed the colorful trip around the world into a wildlife nature expedition. Travers learned about the unfortunate event from her friends.Īfter pondering whether she should stick to her artistic expression or risk to see her book banished from more shelves, P.L. Travers was angry with her publisher at that time for not defending her loudly enough. Then, in 1980 the San Francisco Public Library removed Mary Poppins from its shelves because of alleged racist references and derogatory treatment of minorities. The first revision, which left the plot of the story untouched, occurred in 1971. Yet, many years after its first publication the story underwent two alterations for socio-political reasons.
The different attires, manner of speech and greeting customs are not experienced by the children as something threatening, but on the contrary, as something extremely exciting and enjoyable.
All the characters in this adventure are friends of Mary Poppins. In the East the children are greeted by a Chinese Mandarin, and by a tribe of Indians on their last destination in the West. Then, to the South where they encounter a family with a skin much darker than their own. With a shake of the compass, they are transported to the North Pole where they meet with an Eskimo family. In a flash, Jane and Michael experience the vastness and variety of our human world.
“Bad Tuesday” is a story in the first Mary Poppins book published in 1934 in which Mary Poppins, with the help of a compass, takes the Banks children on a trip around the world.
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