PLEASE NOTE: My low rating applies to THIS EDITION ONLY. It's one of the worst adaptations I've ever read.

The story is great. I have some serious issues with this particular adaptation, though. Mary Ann Evans SUCKS. I'm not kidding. This is supposed to be a book which helps children learn to read, yet the text is chopped up into sentence fragments. My son (who is eight, but reads at a high school level) had trouble parsing this text, because of all the incomplete sentences. I suppose Evans thought it would be best not to have long sentences, that children would have trouble following, but she went way too far in the opposite direction. Endless fragments are not only more difficult to read, but they're setting a horrible example for young readers who are just developing their reading and grammar skills. This edition SUCKS REALLY HARD, and I would recommend that it never be purchased for use by a child. Since adults don't need an adaptation, there's no reason for adults to buy it either. This is a real stinker. On the basis of this book, I'm also going to steer clear of all other Stepping Stones books in the future, and plan to complain to my son's school librarian (or at least make sure she's aware of the deficiencies in this particular book). ( )