Posted on 11/27/2005 9:21:12 PM PST by tbird5
A recent change in the photo of a well-known children’s book illustrator to remove a cigarette from his hand has drawn criticism from a Kansas City bookstore.
Pete Cowdin, owner of Reading Reptile, said he noticed the change about six weeks ago while selling a copy of "Goodnight Moon," a popular classic written by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Clement Hurd that was first published in 1947.
The photograph of Hurd published in the book for years showed him with a cigarette in his right hand, but in new copies brought out recently by HarperCollins Publishers, the cigarette has been digitally removed.
Cowdin, surprised by the change, reacted by setting up a Web site, www.goodnightreality.com, to protest what he says is censorship.
"This is one of the best-selling kids’ books of all time," he said. "There are certain responsibilities and obligations on the part of the publisher as a steward - not just a marketer - to what I consider an archival document. To go in and do something like that is the pinnacle of arrogance."
The company defends the altered photo. Kate Morgan Jackson, editor-in-chief for HarperCollins Children’s Books, said the company contends the issue is about smoking.
"One of our responsibilities is to make sure we are publishing" the book "the right way throughout the ages and making it healthy for every generation," she said.
Cowdin includes both versions of the photo on his Web site and ask readers to vote "smoke" or "no smoke."
While saying "everybody agrees" that smoking is bad, Cowdin said changing the photo suggests that Hurd is "attendant to some moral lapse," although the photo was taken decades ago when attitudes about smoking were different.
They cleaned up the rest of the photo too. He would have been 39 in the photo and appears to be in excellent physical condition. He lived to 80.
In another article I found on Google his son admits he gave permission to remove the cigarette, that his father quit smoking a few years after the photo, and really disliked smoking later in his life. Considering the facts I don't see this as Stalinesque at all.
That is ridiculous. Smoking is not bad. Smoking is unhealthy. Dennis Prager is right. Liberals worship health, but eschew morality.
BWWWWAAAAA HHHHHAAAAA HHAAAA!
Except the pose now looks totally unnatural. All they had to do was recrop the photo. Problem solved, no controversy.
Much ado about nothing.
I'm smoking a Nothing. World's first invisible cigarette.
Abortion, birth control pills, risky sexual behaviors... yup, they're all about health alright! They worship narcissism and hedonism.
They don't consider those indulgences unhealthy. No, cigarettes and McDonald's are evil to them.
Not anymore 
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