Children’s horror author R.L. Stine has accused his publisher of editing references to weight, mental health, and ethnicity in over a dozen of his books without his permission.

Certain titles from the Goosebumps anthology, second only to the Harry Potter books in terms of popularity, have been re-released as sanitized e-books by Scholastic, a new report from The Times has revealed. The move comes after huge controversy enveloped the British publisher of Roald Dahl’s books for hundreds of similar changes, leading the publisher to agree to continue printing the original versions alongside the new bowdlerized editions.

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One Goosebumps character is now “cheerful” instead of “plump.” Elsewhere the word “crazy” has been changed to “silly.” And a character who dressed as a “dark and stormy night” for Halloween now no longer wears black face paint.

More than a hundred edits have been made to the books {snip}

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Scholastic told The Timesthat it had made the changes to “keep the language current and avoid imagery that could negatively impact a young person’s view of themselves today, with a particular focus on mental health.”

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