when harriet beecher stowe wrote this story, what do you think was in her mind? was she trying to not be offensive or trying to be enlightening? what was she thinking? here we go. >> i think that he was trying to shock people and she's an abolitionist. she was trying to slow the evils of slavery. >> absolutely. now, in her doing that, she painted -- this is an early review of her work. she painted a very, very simplistic view of slavery. you had the kind of good -- i don't know why i'm going to mr. beckette when i say that, the good slave owner and then you had the evil slave owner. okay? and you had the evil slave catcher. and that was basically what slavery was about. you never knew -- you were at the whim of somebody. it was power. okay? you were under somebody's sway. you were in fact, a slave. nothing was your own. it tells about the worst parts of slavery, okaying? what would be the worst thing then to a mother to have her child sold away from her and she did talk about that. the cover we saw -- wait a minute. there's a cover. i believe of little eva crossi

harriet beecher stowe's "uncle tom's cabin" and we'll be talking about mark twain's huckleberry finn. there has been recent controversy, please excuse me, recent controversy talking about a publisher who is changing the "n-word" to. >> slave. >> slave and they're changing the engine word to indian because obviously a number of native americans are offended by that. this is not a controversy that has just started. this has been going on since day one. they came out in the 1860s and the idea is that since that point in time there's been a little bit of controversy. what we're going to do is start in the history because, as i said many times in class, you have to have a sense of history to understand literature. if you don't understand what the people were going through, what they were feeling, what motivated them to do what they did, you lose it when we talk about drama, poetry, and fiction. let's talk about this. it's from ""the new york times"" from january of this year. mark twain used the "n-word" 219 times in huk fin. he was one of 1960s greatest? and little black kid said gangster

and josiah henson was actually the inspiration for harriet beecher stowe's "uncle tom's cabin." >> wow his actual life. and kids can get a sense -- imagine being a kid this age being a slave right here in montgomery county. it's really thought-provoking. >> mm-hmm. good lessons for the children and all families. >> right, and we have josiah henson's story in wednesday's "kidspost." >> terrific. all right, looking forward to that tracy, thanks so much, as always. for fun family activities, visit nbcwashington.com or washingtonpost.com and click on "kidspost." and that is "kidspost" on tv this week. i'm eun yang. >> so much fun, just seeing that video of the cherry blossoms. i mean, i can't believe it's already here! >> will they be here sooner because of the weather? >> i think they will be. i put a cherry chart together a few years ago and february temperatures are usually the best predictor, and so far, february has been warm. this morning notwithstanding. >> all right, well, there's still more "news 4 today" after the break. and also, whatcha lookin' for hon? ah, these new jeans i wa