See, the brilliant thing about children's literature is that good, solid literature that doesn't have storylines full of racist, classist, sexist and ableist depictions is being produced every year.

Your suggestion seems to me to be that we must find a way to cling to these classics for the sake of themselves, that because they're "classic" they're automatically important for impressionable kids to take on board, and must therefore be freely available because, well, because they're there, and they're famous and perhaps won awards during less enlightened times.

Why do kids need to read books that dehumanize minorities or women or people with disabilities in vile ways? Just because those books are famous? Because they're (allegedly) otherwise well-written? Because they're "beloved?" Because there was once a TV show or movie adaptation?

Why not fill school library shelves with the thousands of books that aren't filled with objectionable material, books that help exemplify today's values to today's kids, living in today's world and needing to learn how to navigate a life wherein racism, sexism and other manifestations of privilege-borne bigotry are increasingly intolerable, and certainly shouldn't be subtly (or not so subtly) reinforced through the books we give them to read as entertainment?

If classics must exist in kids' orbits just on the merit of being "classic" then why not have them in the classroom where they can be addressed with full view on their artistic merits and their problems?