I bought several of the books in the Usborne Young Reading Series for my daughters. "Heidi", "The Railway Children" and "The Wizard of Oz" went down really well, but not this one.... It was read once and has been passed straight to the charity shop, as I really can't see us ever wanting to read it again. The front cover and title are appealing, but the story is hard to follow and simply feels like a succession of weird, random events with no real thread tying everything together or purpose to the story. Maybe if you had read the original, unabridged story first then this copy would make sense, but taken on its own it's just a bit strange. My daughters didn't like it at all, and I would not recommend the book, though the Usborne Young Reading series as a whole is lovely.