I’m a big fan of the new Penguin Classics cover for the 50th anniversary adult edition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. But judging by the reaction on twitter and the media at large, I may well be in a minority of one here.

The illustrator Sarah McIntyre has already put up a good defence of it here, although she doesn’t wholeheartedly endorse the image. There’ve been accusations of child sexualisation – Joanne Harris suggested Rolf Harris do the next one (a flippant tweet that becomes more disturbing the more I think about it). The author Patrick Ness even ranked it as a publishing disaster to rank alongside the Hitler Diaries. Hmmm.

For the most part it’s been seen as a betrayal of people’s fond memories of an innocent childhood classic – and by extension an insult to the original artist Quentin Blake. Well, I’ve banged on about this often enough, but Charlie is no piece of fluffy childhood nostalgia, and Quentin Blake was not the original illustrator.

And I think this is where the new cover should be applauded. It’s stoked a debate that’s been hidden so brilliantly by Quentin Blake’s witty illustrations. I think Dahl’s books should be open to multiple interpretations – Nadia Shireen’s Enormous Crocodile maybe, or David Tazzyman’s The Twits.

And here’s the thing, the reaction might have been overwhelmingly negative but it has succeeded in framing this fascinating novel in an adult context. They’re inviting readers to think about its characters and attitudes beyond their misty memories. And after all shouldn’t any great classic be open to multiple interpretations, even if they do make their adult readers uncomfortable?

As for the image itself it fits in to the aesthetic of the rest of the Penguin Classics range, and aligns it with some of Dahl’s work for adults like Kiss Kiss and Tales of the Unexpected. And if you’re still not convinced take a look at some of the other shots from the fashion shoot that this was originally used for. It could have been a lot worse.