David Williams: "Dangerous" Chinese Characters Removed From Children's Books.

The Worst Kids in the World will be remastered next year without the stories of Brian Wong, Who Never Was, Once Wrong. The move comes after Georgie Ma's podcast complained that the book "normalizes jokes about minorities from an early age."

This book contains short stories about ten characters, including Nigel Neath-Boy, Grubby Gertrude, and Bertha Blueuber. When it was released in 2016, it sold over 450,000 copies in the UK and has since released two sequels and other spinoffs. In consultation with our writer and illustrator [Tony Ross], we can confirm that a new story is being written to replace "Brian Wong" in the upcoming issue of "The Worst Kids in the World," according to a statement from HarperCollins Children's.

"Chinese culture is misunderstood." Speaking to Booksellers, Ma explained, "Wong" and "wrong" are two words commonly used on playgrounds to choose someone when his last name is Wong. "The way Brian describes it. He wears glasses, he looks like an idiot, he has small eyes... these are all dangerous stereotypes."

He added, "The whole character is modeled on a minority myth where the Chinese are nervous, gloomy, and good at math, we don't face each other, and we perform well. "It was very frustrating reading it. For me, having a small child, I don't want him to be consumed by stories that misrepresent Chinese culture." After criticizing the character on Instagram earlier this year, Ma said he now "thanks" the publisher for "listening and taking action."

Williams, who rose to fame on the sketch show Little Britain before becoming a hugely successful children's writer, did not comment. He and his television partner Matt Lucas apologized last year for playing characters from different ethnic backgrounds on the popular series. They used black makeup in some of the sketches, and the program was removed from iPlayer, Netflix, and BritBox after objections were raised.