Humphrey's Tiny Tales: Children's books taken off school library shelves as they contain a link to adult material
Children’s books have been taken off school library shelves because they contain links to porn sites.
Several titles in the series called Humphrey’s Tiny Tales by Betty G Birney contain a section at the back of the book which contain suggestions and a web address.
However, it has become apparent that the domain owner of funwithhumphrey.com is no longer the publisher, but has been taken over by in appropriate content.
A message sent to parents from one primary school in Hampshire says: “We've been made aware by Hampshire Library Service that several titles in the Humphrey's Tiny Tales series by Betty G Birney contain a weblink at the back of the book that no longer directs people to information about the books. Instead, the link now leads to inappropriate and unsafe material, containing pornographic content with no age restrictions.
“The School Library Service are recalling copies held in their collection and on Sora [a school reading app] and we have also taken appropriate action.”
The Humphrey’s Tiny Tales series relate the exploits of “Humphrey, everyone's favourite classroom hamster, [who] has hamster-iffic adventures that are full of surprises”. They are described as being “chapter books perfect for emergent readers”.
The book is published in the UK by Faber and Faber, which said: “It has been brought to our attention that the funwithhumphrey website link printed in editions of the Humphrey book series now leads to a malicious rotating website. This website is not in any way associated with Faber or the author Betty Birney. The author has been made aware of this distressing news.
“Please note that the site appears to link to a range of different consumer websites, which change each time the link is refreshed. The site is being flagged as suspicious by various online security services. We haven't received reports that it links to adult content.
“We are taking this matter extremely seriously, and have acted as a matter of urgency. All affected stock is now frozen. We have immediately paused on the sale and distribution of those books. We have reported the site to the National Cyber Security Centre.
“We have contacted all our customers including retailers, wholesalers, school and library suppliers and other relevant organisations. We are asking people not to visit the website and to ensure that children do not visit it either. We are asking anyone who has copies of these titles to remove these books from their shelves until such time as they can be replaced. Retailers may return copies of the affected titles. Ebook editions of these books have already been amended.
“We sincerely apologise for all inconvenience and distress that this will have caused and to all Humphrey fans.”
A Hampshire County Council spokesperson said: “We have withdrawn all affected digital copies and are in the process of recalling any physical editions featuring the web link, from both our public libraries across the county and our School Library Service stock. All local schools have been notified accordingly.”
In October a similar situation arose with the Spy Pups series of books by Andrew Cope, which led to warnings being circulated by school library services about the rogue URL addresses. There is no suggestion that the author in either case is involved.