Editing The Chronicles of Narnia (section)

===Accusations of racism===
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In addition to sexism, Pullman and others have also accused the Narnia series of fostering racism.<ref name="Ezard"/><ref>{{cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4347226.stm|title=Pullman attacks Narnia film plans|work=[[BBC News]]|date=16 October 2005}}</ref> Over the alleged racism in ''The Horse and His Boy'', newspaper editor [[Kyrie O'Connor]] wrote:
{{blockquote|While the book's storytelling virtues are enormous, you don't have to be a bluestocking of [[political correctness]] to find some of this fantasy anti-[[Arab]], or anti-Eastern, or anti-[[Ottoman Turks|Ottoman]]. With all its stereotypes, mostly played for belly laughs, there are moments you'd like to stuff this story back into its closet.<ref name="OConnor">{{cite web|url=http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20051201%2FLIVING%2F512010303%2F1007|first=Kyrie|last=O'Connor|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051214153306/http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20051201%2FLIVING%2F512010303%2F1007|title=5th Narnia book may not see big screen|work=[[Houston Chronicle]]|publisher=IndyStar.com|date=1 December 2005|archive-date=14 December 2005}}</ref>}}

[[Gregg Easterbrook]], writing in ''[[The Atlantic]]'', stated that "the Calormenes, are unmistakable Muslim stand-ins",<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/10/in-defense-of-c-s-lewis/302301/|title=In Defense of C. S. Lewis|last=Easterbrook|first=Gregg|date=1 October 2001|website=The Atlantic|access-date=21 March 2020}}</ref> while novelist [[Philip Hensher]] raises specific concerns that a reader might gain the impression that Islam is a "Satanic cult".<ref>{{cite web|first=Philip|last=Hensher|author-link=Philip Hensher|url=http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=907|title=Don't let your children go to Narnia: C. S. Lewis's books are racist and misogynist|publisher=Discovery Institute|date=1 March 1999}}</ref> In rebuttal to this charge, at an address to a C. S. Lewis conference, Devin Brown argued that there are too many dissimilarities between the Calormene religion and Islam, particularly in the areas of polytheism and human sacrifice, for Lewis's writing to be regarded as critical of Islam.<ref>{{cite web|last=Brown|first=Devin|work=Keynote Address at The 12th Annual Conference of The C. S. Lewis and Inklings Society Calvin College|date=28 March 2009|url=http://www.narniaweb.com/resources-links/are-the-chronicles-of-narnia-sexist-and-racist/|title=Are The Chronicles of Narnia Sexist and Racist? |publisher=NarniaWeb}}</ref>

Nicholas Wanberg has argued, echoing claims by Mervyn Nicholson, that accusations of racism in the books are "an oversimplification", but he asserts that the stories employ beliefs about human aesthetics, including equating dark skin with ugliness, that have been traditionally associated with racist thought.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Wanberg |first=Nicholas |year=2013 |title=Noble and Beautiful: Race and Human Aesthetics in C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia |url=http://journal.finfar.org/articles/noble-and-beautiful-universal-human-aesthetics-in-c-s-lewiss-the-chronicles-of-narnia/ |journal=Fafnir: Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research |volume=1 |issue=3 |access-date=28 October 2015}}</ref>

Critics also argue whether Lewis's work presents a positive or negative view of [[colonialism]]. Nicole DuPlessis favors the anticolonial view, claiming "the negative effects of colonial exploitations and the themes of animals' rights and responsibility to the environment are emphasized in Lewis's construction of a community of living things. Through the negative examples of illegitimate rulers, Lewis constructs the 'correct' relationship between humans and nature, providing examples of rulers like Caspian who fulfil their responsibilities to the environment."<ref>{{cite book|last=DuPlessis|first=Nicole|chapter=EcoLewis: Conversationism and Anticolonialism in the Chronicles of Narnia|title=Wild Things: Children's Culture and Ecocriticism|editor1-first=Sidney I.|editor1-last=Dobrin|editor2-first=Kenneth B.|editor2-last=Kidd|location=Detroit|publisher=Wayne State University Press|year=2004|page=125}}</ref> Clare Etcherling counters with her claim that "those 'illegitimate' rulers are often very dark-skinned" and that the only "legitimate rulers are those sons and daughters of [[Adam and Eve]] who adhere to Christian conceptions of morality and stewardship – either white English children (such as Peter) or Narnians who possess characteristics valued and cultivated by the British (such as Caspian)."<ref>{{cite journal|last=Echterling|first=Clare|title=Postcolonial Ecocriticism, Classic Children's Literature, and the Imperial-Environmental Imagination in The Chronicles of Narnia.|journal=The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association|volume=49|issue=1|year=2016|page=102}}</ref>