I’m almost done translating a classic Brazilian children’s novel by Monteiro Lobato. There’s just one little problem: its racism.

Among the many things the world doesn’t need right now, along with nuclear war, deadly pandemics, and collision with an asteroid, is a racist children’s book.

But that’s what I’ve got. That’s what I’ve been working on for months. Now the question is what to do with it.

If the book — my translated title is “The Fancies of Littlenose” — had been written in the past few decades, I’d neither translate it nor even read it. I’d relegate it to the rubbish. I’d bury it in leftovers. I wouldn’t even dignify it with recycling.

If I could edit the original, I could easily excise the offensive references and still have an entertaining and imaginative piece of fantasy literature.

But the original was published in 1931, and who am I to edit a classic?

It isn’t a terrible or hateful racism, but it’s certainly disrespectful. The story involves one Black person. She is a servant to a white person. She is referred to as a “negra” more often than by her name.

She is loved by the other characters, but once the narrator refers to her by a term that could mean either “esteemed negra” or “pet negra,” both offensive yet at the same time meant to be affectionate.

(Astute readers are now wondering why an upper-case B in Black but a lower-case w in white. The Associated Press recently decided to do it that way, and I think their reasoning is reasonable. I’ll let you look that up so I can move on.)

Having been written in the early 20th century in a country still recovering from slavery, the book reflects the racism that our own country still wrestles with.

So what to do with it?

Edit out the offensive part so we can pretend the racist attitude never happened? That seems a lot like erasing history by editing it.

Or simply not translate it? That seems a lot like trying to erase history by ignoring it, tantamount to burning a book or tearing down a statue.

We’ve faced these questions before with “Huckleberry Finn,” a book considered fundamental to American culture. It is replete with racism and integral to the American soul. It’s about the way we were: racist to an extreme yet bold enough to seek to escape it.

The main issue with that book is the word used to describe Huck’s friend Jim, a word so ugly we avoid repeating it even in an academic discussion. At least one modern edition rewords the epithet as “the slave Jim.”

But now “slave” is considered offensive, implying that a slave is inherently someone’s property. The preferred term is “enslaved person.”

I can’t argue with the good intentions of that shift in correctness, but I feel the American soul loses something if Huck Finn decides to go to Hell for stealing “formerly enslaved person Jim.” Something terribly important and too terrible to forget gets lost in that translation.

“The Fancies of LittleNose” depicts racist attitudes of the past, not just Brazil’s but America’s. It also depicts the past of anyone who has experienced childhood, with all its fantasies and whimsy.

Cultures have fantasies, too. Racism is one of them. It’s a fantasy based on imaginary characteristics associated with millions of strangers.

Racists believe in their fantasies much the way children believe in Santa Claus and tooth fairies.

We cannot abhor racism unless we know about it. To ignore it, cover it up, erase references, or forget that it ever existed does not do away with it. History happened. It’s where we were. Toppling statues and burning books is a counterproductive way to avoid repeating it.

I’m going to finish my translation as faithfully to the the original as possible. But I’m going to take the chicken way out. I’m going to discuss the racism (and also a little sexism) in an introduction, and I’ll tag a few references with footnotes.

Readers shouldn’t need that, but they’re going to get it anyway. I hope they’re not offended by my gratuitous excuses.

And I’m not going to have the book illustrated. I don’t want children to read it. Not until they’re older. Not until they, unlike racists, can think beyond fantasy.

Glenn Cheney is a writer, translator, and managing editor of New London Librarium. He can be reached at glenn@nllibrarium.com.