The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Book

This was one of those abridged versions of the Classics in which the books have usally been cut down to only the main important adventure scenes and illustrated to trick children into reading more off the so-called "Classics". Sometimes they are decent but in other cases they aren't.

The way this one started off made me want to read the actual book. But it was very apparent early on that there was still a bunch missing as the book jumped from his first voyage to basically ending up in Brazil then starting off again.

The writing was a lot cleaner and more modernized than you would have in the regular book so it made it much easier to read. There wasn't much need for a dictionary but there were portions of the book that did seem out of order like milking goats when there were no domestic goats in sight. And I just can't imagine being able to walk up to a feral goat, which shouldn't exist there in the first place, then starting to milk it.

As with most of the Illustrated Classics the book has a picture on each spread that is mostly sketch so it can work as a coloring book if you want to leave your own mark on the story. The characters, though, were well developed although I was surprised they would include a picture of a hanged man in a book geared towards much younger minds.

All in all I wasn't really much a fan of it as this book reminded me too much of one of my favorits "The Swiss Family Robinson" although there are many marked differences between the two works.

All in all it was a decent quick read for those who want to dip their toes into Classics but don't want to struggle through the pages of the bigger books. But remember if you choose to go this route than you are definitely missing out a good portion of the story even, and most especially, portions that would provide readers with the essential clues to the actual plot than what they receive from books like these.