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July 6, 2010
The thin edge of the wedge
Scholastic Press takes on the Arabic language market. Will Clifford the Big Red Dog offend Muslim anti-dog sensibilities? Yes!
To observant Muslims he is, because dogs are considered ritually unclean. Scholastic wanted to be careful not to appear culturally imperialistic, so Clifford was put in the "no" pile.The education ministers, who came from Bahrain, Lebanon and Jordan, drew up a list of 27 "no-nos," according to Sakoian. "No dogs, no pigs, no boys and girls touching, no magic," she said, naming a few.
They liked values and talk of honesty and cooperation among children. Anything that hinted at overly independent children or religion was eliminated. The colorful "I Spy" series was excluded after a tiny dreidel was spotted in a picture.
. . .
The U.S. and other Western governments have funded Arabic translations, particularly of textbooks. But Scholastic's Arabic publishing effort is by far the largest, experts agree.
[17 million distributed so far!]During an interview near the publisher's global headquarters in Lower Manhattan, Sakoian said that she'd long ago set her sights on selling to the vast Arab market. She first approached a private foundation to underwrite translations but got nowhere. In post- 9/11 America, none was interested in supporting Arab culture, she said. The U.S. State Department eventually paid for translations through a democracy-building initiative and for printing about half the books.
But Scholastic had a long way to go before it started printing. First, it had editing to do even of classics. Because Islam does not acknowledge the celebration of birthdays, "Ladybug's Birthday" was renamed "Ladybug's Anniversary." Ms. Frizzle's students on "The Magic School Bus" were given Arabic-sounding names, skirts were lengthened, body parts were covered and the skin tone and hair of the Swiss orphan girl in "Heidi" was darkened for the Arabic edition. (A tiny church steeple on the cover picture of Heidi's village escaped notice, however. "We just couldn't catch everything," Sakoian said.)
Gotta love that - overly independent children, bad. Dreidels - do you think that's religion, or a specific religion, driving the veto? Heidi darker than blonde? Oh, well - it's a publishing venture.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at July 6, 2010 7:44 AM