Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources What do you think of adaptations of classics?

I mean the ones that are rewritten for children and illustrated. I was thinking I'd pass on these for my kids and just have them read the real books, but DD found some at the library and is reading them obsessively. I guess we're embracing the adaptations for now, so a couple questions:

1. Does anybody have a recommendation for a publisher that does really good adaptations of classics? She's reading Calico Illustrated Classics right now but I'm not sure how the quality stacks up against others.

2. If your kid got interested in this type of book, did you find they were more or less likely to want to read the real book later?

Well, I avoid them, because I'm a snob like that. But if my kids became independently interested, I certainly wouldn't forbid them. I will say that my DD read the adapted Anne of Green Gables at school in 2nd grade, and--this is one data point--she has not been interested in the original.

When children are in high school they can read Kaplan SAT Score-Raising Classics .

we've done them backwards - we've read the originals aloud, and then DD5 has been reading the adaptations on her own because she enjoys the plot/characters so much. she definitely prefers the language of the originals and cannot wait to move on to reading them herself.

Exactly. I did try to discourage her from getting the first one she wanted (Kidnapped) but she loved it and keeps finding others so I figured it couldn't be any worse than last year's obsession, which was those wretched fairy books.

Oh, the cursed fairy books. In K, DD read EVERY SINGLE ONE that the library had, which at the time was something like 56 or something (I'm sure it's more now). At least I didn't have to read them to her! (Later, she read every single Warriors book the library had. Now she is rereading the Harry Potter series for something like the 7th time...I have a rule that she has to read something other than HP for 1/2 hour a day, though she can read HP all day long for the rest of the day if she wants.)

I'm so glad the "wretched fairy books" either aren't in our library or aren't where DD can find them. At least, she hasn't yet. I don't know what they are, but they sound like something that would be banned from our house if I did.

We just finished The Wizard of Oz, in its original version. I had to go through two versions side by side to make sure which one to check out -- one had lots of pictures (which were downright frightening, BTW), but I didn't think it was going to have all the words, and sure enough, it didn't. I don't like adaptations, because (like ultramarina) I'm a snob about that.

DS(YS)11 devoured every book he could get his hands on VERY early. He wanted to read the classics, and I let him read the adaptations. He thoroughly enjoyed many of those stories and now has chosen to read many/most of the unabridged versions of those same classics. He has become a snob about reading anything abridged because he says the original versions are so much better. Reading a kid's version hasn't prevented them from wanting to read the original. It's actually been the opposite for us.

I wasn't sure whether it was a good or bad thing several years ago either, but both my boys seem to like reading books they enjoy over and over anyway. (DS claims he read the entire HP series at least 20-something times).

I just asked DS and he would recommend "Great Illustrated Classics" series published by Playmore/Waldman. In that series, he recalls liking Ivanhoe, Three Musketeers, Call of the Wild, The Man in the Iron Mask, Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and Journey to the Center of the Earth. He also said the "Classic Starts" series from Sterling was better, but says it's harder and without illustration. He remembers reading that version of White Fang.

HTH

Thanks! Our library has both of these series as well.

Good call.