As a big fan of Charles Dickens, I was both excited and a bit apprehensive going into this. However, I was pleasantly surprised. This new abridged children’s edition is well worth a read if you’re a fan of Charles Dickens or are looking to familiarise yourself with the classics. As a diehard fan of the original author though, I would plead with you to read the original first!

I’ve read the original Great Expectations twice, and whereas A. L. Kennedy’s abridged version does a great job, it still doesn’t really do the original classic justice. I don’t think much has been left out, but the writing style dumbs the language down just a little bit too much. However, this is still a great book, and it is well worth a read.

The illustrations in the book are superb. The illustrations stay true to the book and they really add something to it. My favourite illustration was the Marshes section cover page. I could look at it all day.

It was great to lose myself in Pip’s world again. Great book!

Despite having a degree in English Literature and a special interest in the Victorian era, I haven’t read much Dickens. I would like to try to change that but unfortunately, I haven’t really got on well with much of the Dickens I have read (Hard Times and A Christmas Carol). I think I only really understood what was going on in A Christmas Carol because well, it’s A Christmas Carol. So, an abridged children’s version of Great Expectations was probably exactly what I needed in order to digest one of his best loved works.

Great Expectations follows a young orphan named Pip, who is raised by his tyrannical older sister and her kind blacksmith husband. One Christmas, he meets and helps an escaped convict. Soon after, Pip is invited to play at the strange, dusty house of Miss Havisham where her ward Estella teases him for looking so poor. Despite this, Pip falls in love with Estella and takes up an apprenticeship with his brother-in-law before learning that he has an anonymous benefactor, who wants Pip to grow up to be a gentleman. He assumes his luck is turning thanks to Miss Havisham but that soon becomes apparent that it isn’t. Will Pip ever manage to gain Estella’s affections and who is looking out for him?

This version has some gorgeous illustrations to help the story along and they are perfect for this young reader’s edition. Although much of it is simple and all of it is colourless, my mind could paint in the colour easily myself and bring the settings to life more vividly.

The opening chapters are what I think could be considered quintessentially Dickens. It’s a family Christmas dinner setting and everyone has whimsical names and manners. Although Pip is treated terribly by his sister, even at Christmas, the scene itself all felt quite familiar to me as a typical English Christmas family get-together. I love that Kennedy managed to still capture that ambiance throughout the abridgement process.

Although I didn’t expect it to happen, I was willing Joe to leave his cruel wife. I would have loved this to be a story about a hard working man raising his young brother-in-law as his own son, having taken him away from the vicious treatment at the hands of Mrs Gargery. Pip adores Joe and I was really happy that at least, he had an adult friend who could protect him to some extent.

This one sentence that describes Pip’s feelings about Miss Havisham’s house on his first visit is truly haunting. From what I knew previously about Miss Havisham’s character, this dark, cold, decaying house is exactly how I always pictured it and that stopped clock image fits it perfectly. For Miss Havisham, her wedding day was when time stopped and never restarted, so I found it really chilling to walk around her frozen house and indeed, her life.

As he gets older, Pip becomes a respectable, considerate young man and his sense of justice becomes apparent. He cares about people and respects women, which was perhaps not exactly the norm in Dickens’ London. He’s very easy to root for and I was excited to see him get his happy ending.

Occasionally, the story does speak directly to us, the reader. A lot of books for very young children do this and I like that this version of a classic does it. It allows readers to directly engage with the story and its themes. By asking the reader to think about their choices and what they mean for the future, we’re being encouraged to reflect on our actions and think about whether we’re happy with them. If we’re not, this gives us a chance to change how we react in the future. I thought this was really clever and it keeps the core message of the book at the forefront of the reader’s mind.

Great Expectations is a really thoughtful story with an important lesson for us all. I’m really glad I found this really accessible version of it, as I’m pretty sure I would struggle to get through the original. If, like me, you face barriers when you try to read certain classical authors, I recommend looking for some abridged or children’s versions of them. Chances are, the story is something you enjoy but if things like language or writing style are preventing you from accessing the story, it doesn’t have to be this way.

In exchange for an honest review, I was given a copy of Great Expectations.

This is quite intriguing as a concept. I was expecting a short read but found a pretty intense revisiting of Dickens's most engaging novel. Kennedy takes the pull and thrust of Dickens and bring it's to life in a homage.

I was thinking about gifting this to family but feel it might be better as a concept with pictures.

Thanks for a unique return to Dickens, Kennedy.

This is a well executed abridged version of Great Expectations for middle grade readers and older children. It is also a great introduction to classics for children over 8, especially if the read is followed by a discussion with an adult who has read the book. I will be recommending it to my adult friends who want to read classics but complain about not having the time.

It was lovely revisiting GE, a story I liked when I was my child’s age, with my child.

I have always had mixed feelings about abridged classics. Classics become classics partly because of the plot, partly because of the way language is used. Abridged versions will not be the same.

This one certainly has a very different feel to it, but it is written very well. It will be a great option to introduce younger children to Dickens' world.