'Offensive' word to be removed from Jacqueline Wilson book

After three complaints from parents, Random House is to amend My Sister JodieAlison Flood guardian.co.uk,


Parents' complaints about inappropriate language in Jacqueline Wilson's latest novel My Sister Jodie have persuaded its publisher to replace the offending word.

Random House Children's Books received three complaints from parents about the use of the word "twat" in the book, which is aimed at children aged 10 years and over. Wilson, a former Children's Laureate, is an enormously popular author, and the book has already sold 150,000 copies in the UK since publication in March. But the complaints have meant that the publisher will replace the word with "twit" when it comes to reprint the novel.

Supermarket chain Asda also received a complaint about the novel, which it passed on to Random House, and it is now in the process of withdrawing it from stores until the novel is reprinted. Asda said it had sold over 28,000 copies of My Sister Jodie since it was published, and that the complaint was "the first and only" one it had received.

The book is about Jodie, who is "bold and brash and bad", and her younger sister Pearl. During the course of the novel, when the two girls are sent to boarding school, Jodie becomes interested in a 19-year-old boy who uses the word "twat" in conversation with her.

"The word 'twat' was used in context. It was meant to be a nasty word on purpose, because this is a nasty character," said a spokesperson for Random House. "However ...

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Pathetic. "...the likes of NickP can rant on if they like"

I occasionally rant on at http://amonsterinthemirror.blogspot.com/

I'm amazed Jacqueline Wilson has allowed that.

Any time I felt strongly about a particular word that a copy-editor, proofreader or editor wanted to change in my book, Quercus always deferred to me. Even though even I realized I was sometimes just being bloody minded. www.keithmansfield.co.uk
johnnymackintosh.com

Johnny Mackintosh and the Spirit of London was published by Quercus on 3 July 2008

I agree with Kasia-when i was reading Jacqueline Wilson's books (around age eleven/twelve), us schoolchildren were using much worse words than twat. It's the way things are now and pretty much have always been, although it's not really been written down. People should just accept it, i think.

There was a piece in The Times about this today, and it said that 'a Random House source' had commented that Jacqueline Wilson was not aware that the word was a reference to 'female genitalia.'

Can this be true?