Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The current release of this book -- published by Grosset & Dunlap -- is significantly abridged from the original. The current edition is about 20% smaller and has fewer than half the number of pages (32 versus 68). The original, high-quality Viking editions placed text and illustrations in a layout that let the story breathe -- the amount of text on each page and the space within the drawings set the pace of the story. Well, Grosset & Dunlap "fixed" that: they hacked away at the illustrations (when they didn't omit them altogether) and then packed the text into whatever empty space they could find inside the illustrations themselves. The result has the same relationship with the original as an orange peel has to an orange -- the color and shape remain, but all the juice has been squeezed out. If you care at all about quality, find your kid a copy of the Viking edition instead. Borrow it from a library if you must. But stay far away from this edition unless-and-until the publisher fires the imbecile who decided to release this ersatz "classic" and brings back the original as it was meant to be read and enjoyed.