Walliams

I have read David Walliams books to my class. Not recently. But I have. 

I’m not proud of it.

I didn’t know children’s literature like I do now, and if you’re someone who is thinking of reading one to your class because they’re popular, please read on.

Since he published his first children’s book, The Boy in the Dress, in 2008, David Walliams has been a prolific children’s author:

18 stand-alone novels

9 picture books

6 short-story collections

It is estimated that his books have generated over 37 million sales worldwide.

I can’t speak for every school, but you see a lot of love for him in my school (from the children) , and I would imagine a lot, if not all of the schools of people I interact with on social media might be the same.

We don’t read them at home. My youngest daughter asked me a while ago why we didn’t have any David Walliams books and I believe my answer was something along the lines of, ‘I don’t think some of his representations of certain people are very good and there are better books out there.’

And I thought nothing of it. We didn’t need Walliams as the books we were reading were better, in my opinion.

When my eldest daughter turned 9 her friend bought her two books – Demon Dentist and The Midnight Gang, both by Walliams. There was an awkwardness – there was Walliams in our house! -  and she didn’t know what to do with them.

And that is when I realised I’d been an idiot about the whole thing. I thought back to my initial response to my youngest daughter and realised without any real explanation it was absolutely useless. I also felt bad – my eldest daughter’s friend had bought her those books because she knew my daughter loved reading. That’s thoughtful and kind and shouldn’t be ignored.

So I decided we should both read one of them, discuss it and then she can make her mind up about Walliams for herself. More than anything, Rights of the Reader no.5 states ‘The right to read anything.’

So I read Demon Dentist.

And I absolutely LOVED it!

I didn’t really.

Firstly, the premise – a boy called Alfie lives with his dad (his mum died during childbirth) who is retired due to ill health from working down a coal mine. Where they live weird things are being placed under pillows where teeth have been left. A very suspect dentist called Miss Root comes into school, then ends up taking all of Alfie’s teeth out. A social worker called Winnie starts to support the family, Alfie hatches a plan with his friend Raj, the newsagent, Miss Root turns out to be a witch, Alfie’s dad dies quite unnecessarily, Winnie and Raj get married and become Alfie’s guardians. That’s pretty much it.

There’s nothing new, interesting or imaginative about the story at all. And it’s too long.

You can call it quits there if you want in regards to Walliams, there are far better books out there.

But I don’t want to, because I want to talk about Winnie and Raj. I’m also aware of Gabz, another black character who doesn’t get the same treatment as these two, but if you’re going to defend someone by saying that they’re not always offensive with their characters, it’s not a great starting point.

Winnie is a social worker introduced on page 72. From her picture at the beginning of the book you can see that Winnie is a black woman.

Here is an extract from p.78:

‘I have heard so much about you from your father, young Alfred,’ said Winnie, spraying biscuit crumbs all over the boy and the carpet and even as far away as the curtains as she spoke. She took a large and noisy slurp of her tea from her cup, and washed the remainder of the biscuit down her throat.

So Winnie doesn’t have great manners, which is funny, right? And the slurping of the tea gets more extreme as the book goes on with lots of capital letters and exclamation marks, to make it, I guess, even more funny?

It’s not a great start, and totally unnecessary.

Oh it gets worse…

Winnie peered at the boy. She slid along the sofa, and her big fat face came close to his, like a hippopotamus inspecting a little bird that has landed on its nose. ‘Oh my word! Look at the boy’s teet!’

‘My what?’ said Alfie.

‘Teet!’

‘My teet?’ replied Alfie, confused.

‘Yes, boy…’ said the social worker in a frustrated tone. ‘YOUR TEET!’

‘I think Winnie means your teeth…’ ventured Dad.

‘Yes, that’s what I said!’ implored the lady.

‘TEET! T,E,E,T,H, TEET!’

This ‘joke’ is repeated throughout the book, mainly getting its mileage from Winnie pronouncing Mr Griffith, ‘Mr Griffit’. She is again corrected, and again she spells out the name ‘Griffith’ correctly, and then immediately pronounces it ‘Griffit’. Oh how hilarious.

I was lucky enough to be mentored by a wonderful woman from St. Lucia, so I’m well aware of the pronunciation of certain sounds people from the Caribbean may have. A bit of reading later and I found this online:

In terms of phonology, Jamaican Creole has a sound system which is independent from English. The speakers of the language do not use the “th” sound.

Winnie, in her mind, is speaking perfectly normally, and gets frustrated when people don’t understand her. But it’s played for laughs in the book.

So we’re laughing at someone for how they speak, based on where they’re from?

Hmmm.. pretty sure there’s a word for that.

Now I’ll move onto Raj, the newsagent. From his picture and name, it’s fair to say that Raj is Asian. The name Raj can be short for Rajesh, or it can be Raj on its own.

We’re into lazy stereotyping territory here, unfortunately, with an Asian shop owner. Where I grew up people referred to these shops in another way, which I will not write here. Walliams will be well aware of that term. There’s nothing wrong with owning a shop or newsagents – that’s a good job doing a good service for the community. But not in Walliams’ hands.

Here Raj is on page 218:

Indeed, when Alfie entered this particular afternoon, Raj was snoring away with a gobstopper still in his mouth. A slick of the newsagent’s spit was spreading over the newspapers. Raj woke with a start, spat out his sweet and exclaimed:

‘Ah young Alfred! My favourite customer!’

His voice was as bright and colourful as the confectionary he sold.

Alfie always looked forward to seeing Raj. The newsagent knew how poor he and his dad were, and being a kind-hearted man he would often give Alfie a treat to take home. A melted ice lolly, a chocolate bar that had been slightly nibbled by a rodent, or a bag of jelly babies that Raj had accidentally sat on so all the tiny tots were now flattened. Raj wasn’t a wealthy man, and couldn’t afford to give anything more.

Raj is kind because he gives Alfie dirty food? That’s not kind. Not at all. You can’t write something like that and put that he’s kind at the end and get away with it. Raj is a recurring character throughout the books and is often seen trying to sell out of date food. An article written by Jenn Selby in 2018 (https://inews.co.uk/culture/books/david-walliams-racism-childrens-book-character-raj-indian-shopkeeper-midnight-gang-240641) had this quote from him:

“I am not a bad man. I just use best-before dates as a very rough guide, rounding them up to the nearest decade!”

Raj is also a character run on slapstick and complete and total exaggeration. He’s overweight (like Winnie) and breaks things when he sits on them. He eats the liquorice in dib dabs and replaces them with black pens. His shop is ‘infamous in the town for being incredibly messy’.

Yet again we, the reader, are supposed to be laughing at this, like we did at Winnie, but they’re not in on the joke.

Here we have a black woman and an Asian man whose real purpose in the book is to provide comic relief, through the way they act and the way they speak. That’s not acceptable.

Representation in books has come a long way over the past few years, but as long as this garbage is being churned out and happily bought by parents and schools we’re going to keep having children growing up thinking this kind of thing is funny.

It’s not.

It’s racist.

And the next time my daughter asks me why we don’t have any of his books in the house, that will be my answer.

P.S My eldest hasn’t read it yet, she’s not bothered..