Revelations the works of deceased British children's author Roald Dahl have been updated in recent years has stoked debate about revising language to suit changing social standards.

Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper was the first to report that hundreds of changes have been made to Dahl's books by his UK publisher Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Random House.

Authors Will Kostakis, Jackie French and Andy Griffiths write for young audiences, and shared their views on the controversy with ABC News.

Will Kostakis, author of The Sidekicks

It's déjà vu for Young Adult author Will Kostakis, who says the debate around revisions to Dahl's work is something the world has seen before.

Kostakis pointed out that British author Enid Blyton's books have also been subject to changes.

"Those books were quietly edited over the course of years, sometimes not quietly," Kostakis told ABC News.

In Blyton's The Magic Faraway Tree series, Fanny is now Frannie and cousin Dick is now cousin Rick.

Kostakis also references the fact Dame Slap, a teacher who used corporal punishment, was updated to Dame Snap, a teacher who would yell at children.

Kostakis was just 17 years old when he got his first book deal, with his debut novel Loathing Lola published when he was 19. He said there are words he has used in the past that he wouldn't be comfortable with using now.

"I've been published for 15 years, but writing far longer," Kostakis said.

"A short story I wrote when I was 16 was published in the newspaper. And that short story is still studied in schools.

"The problem is, I use the R word. So, I use retard in it as a throwaway line because in the early 2000s, teenagers were throwing it around, like it was a comma that you are punctuating sentences with."

He said nowadays if he distributes the story to schools, he edits the word out.

"It's not a way of changing the story. Or trying to pretend that I've always been a 100 per cent pure; it's about I don't want to harm someone with my writing.

"And that word, sure it added a certain meaning, but that meaning doesn't negate the harm that seeing that word could cause somebody."

Kostakis said it's the job of Roald Dahl's publisher and estate to preserve the viability of his books going forward, as it is with most authors.

"I don't own my books anymore," Kostakis said.

"I've sold the rights to publish them to a publisher, and they can edit and tweak however they see fit. That's just the way that it works.

Sensitivity readers are part of a 'completely separate' debate

Kostakis said bringing sensitivity readers into the debate, as some have done, is conflating the issue.

A sensitivity reader identifies offensive content, stereotypes, bias and misrepresentations, outlining those problems to a publisher or author before a story goes to print. Kostakis has both used sensitivity readers and been one himself.

He says they're "incredibly useful", but he thinks the way the publishing industry uses them can be problematic as they're sometimes used as a shield at the eleventh hour. He also questions whether some authors need sensitivity readers – maybe they just need to abandon the story.

"Let's say I am writing out of my experience," Kostakis said.

"And writing a first-person narrative of a Wiradjuri man, or writing a first-person narrative from the perspective of a refugee.

"There's always that moment where, if I'm relying on a sensitivity reader to get so many of those details right, and I haven't done the research, then it's like, why the hell am I writing that story?

"Why does that story speak to me as a 30-something, gay, Greek Australian?

"And wouldn't it be better if I uplifted marginalised voices that lived that experience and can say something that isn't just reheating old tropes and cliches and stereotypes?"

Jackie French, author of Diary of a Wombat

"In the last 30 years, particularly in the last 10 years, we've made revisions to my books," said children's author Jackie French.

French said the changes made weren't for reasons of political correctness but because cultural mores had changed. She said in new editions, the words Aboriginal and Indigenous have been capitalised.

"That's primarily because all publishers have a style manual that they refer to," she said.

"And as things change in that style manual, then reprints will be changed to accord with it."

French said technology has also played into alterations.

"We might have someone looking at their watch," French said.

"Instead, they might look at their mobile phone or take their mobile phone out."

The Americans got it wrong

French is perfectly fine with making changes to her books as long as they're not arbitrary.

In the case of changes made to the American edition of her book Diary of a Wombat, French describes them as both "horrifying" and "hilarious".

She said a line in the voice of a wombat that discredits humans was removed.

"They've removed the line 'I can't believe how stupid human beings can be' because that might offend someone. Speaking as a human being, I don't find it offensive."

She said references to the wombat being malicious were also removed.

"I pointed out that the animal in question was actually a very real wombat who at that very moment was actually chewing up my gum boots with malice.

"She was not a sweet little animal ... and the reply was, 'oh, no, but people want to think they're nice'. And so that entire page was removed from the American edition."

French said she's "worried" about those changes. 

"That showed a very deliberate kind of change. We know life is not like that. But we're going to pretend to children and to adults that life is like that.