Roald Dahl’s children’s books bowdlerised

Is this a derivative work? That's the question at the forefront of every 6-year-old's mind, isn't it?

Perhaps - if you use the most charitable sense of word 'work' possible.

If I were to take the text of Das Kapital and replace Marx's descriptions of the alienation of labour with passages from my internet posts praising Donald Trump and Anne Widdicombe, that would also be strictly a 'derivative work'. However, I think most people would quite rightly raise an eyebrow if i attempted to sell, or distribute, my edited works as "Das Kapital by Karl Marx". I guess actually editing and reissuing literature itself, outside the context of (broadly) translation, isn't very common when things are normal. Certainly wearing a well known author's name as a skin suit and attempting to pretend he wrote your words isn't something a normal person with normal motives would want to do. 

If the message of Das Kapital was changed, it would be reasonable to say that something Orwellian was going on. But how has the message in Dahl's book been changed? It hasn't. There's probably a moral to the story, but that moral remains exactly what it  has always been. The proposed changes were entirely superficial and of zero importance to the story's theme.

This is nonsense. If you are not changing what you feel is communicated by Dahl's writing, why are you changing it? . Your motive is clearly to change what you feel is communicated by Dahl's writing, or you have no motive.

What you really mean is this -

"Nothing I feel is valuable or worthy has been changed. I only changed the bits I don't like"

Put your name on it.

What? The central message hasn't been changed. I'd be very interested to hear how you think the moral of the story has changed. If the moral hasn't changed, then what's all the fuss about? As I've already said, it's a storm in a teacup. We're talking about something that has happened again and again in the past without any noticeably adverse effects on society.

Dishonest? Really? You are making a lot of fuss about nothing. This has been happening since before you were born. Stories have long been retold in a manner that is considered appropriate for the times. The original Little Red Riding Hood story was extremely gory. You've probably never heard the original. Nor have many modern German children. Do you think they have been denied their cultural heritage? 

In short, your response is way over the top.