I’m drinking coffee from one of my favourite mugs. On one side it has a Quentin Blake illustration of the Roald Dahl witches. On the other side it has a quote: “A vitch who dares to say I’m wrrrong vill not be with us very long!”

Now Puffin, the children’s book publisher, has dared to say that Dahl himself was wrrrong. The editors have made hundreds of changes to his books to drag them into line with contemporary culture. So Augustus Gloop is no longer “fat” and the Oompa Loompas are no longer “small men” but “small people”.

Suddenly there’s a big unfriendly giant debate about these changes. Salman Rushdie calls it “absurd censorship”. Andy Griffiths says it’s fine, books for children get tweaked all the time. A host of other comments line up in the for and against camps.

At this point I’d love to join in, arguing either that all censorship is bad and books should never be tampered with, or removed; or alternatively, let’s get rid of all this offensive sexism and racism and any other ism currently out of favour. The truth is, however, that I have conflicting feelings. My answer to these questions is: It depends.

There’s a much smaller change that has just swept through Northcote High School library. The school has removed dozens of old non-fiction texts from its library because they use offensive or outdated descriptions of First Nations peoples, or promote one-sided views of colonial settlement. In the long run, revisions like this are much more important than messing with Dahl, and I welcome them.

History is written by the victors, but it can also be rewritten in a more balanced, nuanced and comprehensive way, and that is happening all the time. Our children deserve to get accurate and up to date reading material. But I’d like some of those old books to be kept as conversation starters, to show the way we used to view our history.

Children’s fiction, however, is another matter. We’ve already seen Enid Blyton’s Noddy, and Thomas the Tank Engine get a good going-over. Why Dahl, why now? Because Netflix has bought the hugely lucrative rights to his books. The old trickster must be smirking in his grave.

By all accounts, Dahl was not a nice man. He’s been accused of racism, misogyny and antisemitism. But he was a brilliant writer for children. He understood the appeal of dark, grotesque and disgusting. His characters get tortured, beaten, devoured, murdered, and tricked into eating worm spaghetti. Children love every bit of it without growing up to be sociopaths.