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Greg James has issued an apology after he and Chris Smith made an “ableist” remark about Mrs Twit’s glass eye in a promotional video for their new Roald Dahl spin-off e book.
The pair have written The Twits Next Door as a part of a brand new e book collection commissioned by the Roald Dahl Story Company impressed by the late creator’s unique works.
Radio 1 DJ James and ex-BBC newsreader Smith additionally co-write the Kid Normal e book collection.
In a now-deleted promotional video shared by Puffin Books on Twitter/X, the duo counsel methods of creating The Twits extra disgusting. Illustrator Emily Jones suggests a glass eye, to which Smith replies: “That’s it. What a disgusting pair of Twits!”
The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIBP) was amongst these to criticise the video, responding on X: “When there’s positive representation of disabilities in children’s books, children with disabilities feel seen and heard, and their friends and classmates treat everyone the same. There is nothing at all revolting about prosthetic eyes, we think they’re brilliant.”
Charity Scope posted on X: “Positive disability representation in kid’s books help improve attitudes and inclusion. So what can we expect of negative representation like this?”
They additionally posted a video saying: “Greg and Chris, we know you can do better. The disabled community wants to help you get there.”
Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson, who can also be a crossbench peer within the House of Lords, posted: “Thanks. Thanks very much. #sarcasm. I’d hoped the world had moved on.”
The backlash prompted an announcement from James on Friday (5 April) afternoon. The DJ shared on X: “Hello! Regarding our new Twits story announcement video from this morning: We are so sorry to have caused offence with the launch video. It was absolutely not our intention.
“And we apologise unreservedly. It’s now gone. We understand that words matter and we pride ourselves on championing and welcoming everyone into the magical world of children’s books. We would never dream of deliberately setting out to exclude anyone.
“With the glass eye comment, we were attempting to pay homage to one of the Twit’s most famous pranks involving a glass of beer in order to remind people of Dahl’s infamous terrible two. It’s in no way a suggestion that this forms any part of the plot of the new story nor was it our intention to suggest that it was in any way disgusting.”
James added: “It’s unfortunate that the word disgusting appears to be a direct comment on that. That’s an error on our part. We are devastated that it’s come across like this but completely understand why there is anger. And we appreciate everyone rightly calling it out.
“We hear that fully, we’re so upset that we made a mistake but we’re still incredibly proud of this book and we’re excited to get out there and share it with young readers all over the world x”
The Twits Next Door will see The Twits making an attempt to drive away their “horribly nice” new neighbours: the Lovelies. It shall be printed in August.
TV presenter Konnie Huq, The Last Leg comic Adam Hills and creator Adam Kay are additionally set to contribute to a brief story assortment, Charlie and the Christmas Factory.
The spin-off collection comes after Netflix bought the rights to the whole works of Dahl in 2021.
Last yr, Puffin was the topic of controversy after an investigation by The Telegraph discovered that Dahl’s youngsters’s books had been being rewritten to take away language thought-about offensive.
The phrase “fat”, for instance, was faraway from each e book.
The determination confronted criticism from authors together with Salman Rushdie, who referred to as it “absurd”, whereas Sir Philip Pullman instructed it might be higher to let the books exit of print.
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