I can't remember the books, which makes it harder to answer. I think regardless, it's a product of its time, and the difficulty it has it that thousands, if not millions of kids have read them and you can't scientifically link them to being racist later on or anything. If that's the case, can we prove then that books are harmful? I imagine with good faith that the books have some fairly obvious stereotyping; but does this set a precedent for what counts as racial stereotyping? How do we know, and how do we spot these things without the risk of over-doing it? Over-doing it risks us actually becoming the instigators of stereotyping, finding problems where there are none (the Coco Pops monkey and Waitrose Ugly Duckling spring to mind). That says more about you than about what is considered problematic. The principle behind this is pretty grey, even if the book is clearly using racial stereotyping. Basically; it's complicated.
Loving the responses by the way! it's an interesting topic of discussion.