The new play Giant has revived the scandal of Roald Dahl, the beloved children’s author whose antisemitism became inseparable from his legacy. Dahl’s hatred had its roots in an obsession with Israel, especially after the 1982 Lebanon War, which hardened into something older and darker: Jews as a collective object of blame. Political fury dissolved the line between a state and a people.

Matt Chun shows where that road now leads.

Chun is an Australian children’s book illustrator, part of a profession entrusted with shaping how children understand innocence, cruelty, and empathy. But when Jews were murdered at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration in Bondi, his response in an article title “Never mourn a fascist,” exposed something far beyond political critique: raw antisemitism. The victims were neither Israelis nor soldiers. They were Australian Jews gathered in communal celebration, among them a ten-year-old girl. Chun denied their innocence and treated their deaths as politically qualified, as though Jewish identity itself diminished the claim to grief.

That marks the evolution. Dahl saw war and blamed Jews. Chun sees Jews and explains away their murder.

That is why the cancellation of Chun’s forthcoming children’s book Bila by University of Queensland Press was fitting. Children’s books are an act of trust. Parents place them in their children’s hands believing that the people behind them understand something fundamental about innocence and human worth. A creator who cannot recognize the innocence of a murdered Jewish child at a Hanukkah celebration has forfeited any claim to shape the moral imagination of children.

Dahl’s antisemitism traveled through Israel before landing on Jews. Chun begins with Jews.

Chun wrote that “lands have been pillaged, poisoned, desecrated, and set ablaze by colonisers,” as he celebrates the slaughter of people at a holiday party. Alas, he is only the latest author instilling venom in the ink of books being marketed to children.