let's never give kids access to different times and cultures!

[deird1]

Very cross with my edition of The Naughtiest Girl in the School, right now.


This book was written in the 1940s.
The kids are given two pounds each week for pocket money.
Said pounds are made up of 100 pence each.


GRRR.


Judicious googling confirms my suspicion that the original edition had them receiving two shillings each week.

Why, oh why do people think these things need to be dumbed down? Either the kids won't notice the weird currency, or else they WILL notice and will therefore LEARN something!



This is actually annoying me more than the American editions of Harry Potter.

Comments

[alexseanchai]

I've learned a thing, anyway. :)

[velvetwhip]

Sounds vastly irritating.


Gabrielle

[jesuswasbatman]

Yeah, there's an argument for removing things like racial epithets from children's books but that is just patronising.

[eleanorjane]

Also, er, two pounds a week in the 1940s is a looooooot of money. The Bank of England's inflation calculator tells me it's worth over 100 quid now, i.e. nearly AU$200.

Per week.

GOOD JOB PUBLISHERS. GOOD JOB.

[curiouswombat]

That would really annoy me, too. Especially as even well to do children in the 1940s would probably only have got two or three shillings a week rather than pounds!

In the mid 1960s I got 2/- a week as long as I did my chores; this was pretty much the norm.

[zeborah]

Yeah, even 2/- a week in the 40s seems a lot. In the late 80s / early 90s I was getting $1.50 (NZ dollar, not US dollar even - at the time a pound was worth NZ$3), and of that .50 was to put in the bank, .50 to set aside to buy family birthday/Christmas presents throughout the year, and only .50 to actually spend that week.

There was this one dairy though that had little sherbet lollies at half a cent each. One of the best things to do with 50c was to buy a hundred of those.

[heliopausa]

I'd've been cross, too! How stupid do they think children are? How much do they update the Bastables?