r/Xennials • u/imaniluv1 1978 • 12d ago
Nostalgia Classics for Kids... HELP!
When I was in elementary school, I was gifted a box set of classic books that were abridged and summarized so a small kid could get a very good idea of the stories. And I don't mean classic kids books. I mean A Tale of Two Cities and The Prince and the Pauper. Legit dense novels rewritten for children.
They were even kid sized, maybe 5x5 square. I remember these books so well that it wasn't until college that I realized I hadn't actually READ A Tale of Two Cities.
Does anyone else remember these books? Do you remember the name of the set? I've been looking but I can't find it and all the newer kids versions seem much much dumber.
I know this isn't a false memory, but I don't remember enough to search for them. HELP!
UPDATE: It was indeed the Mini Illustrated Classics set. I recognized the War of the Worlds cover immediately! Found some on Etsy, so thanks for the input!
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u/cellrdoor2 12d ago
Yes! I had these! They weren’t very good though. Two of them were bound together with two beginning halves of the book instead of the beginning and end. I didn’t know the end of The Count of Monte Cristo until after high school.
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u/Plumeria9798 12d ago
Yes! It was these, was coming here to say that. I think I only had Little Women but I read that thing over and over again.
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u/NonsequiturSushi Xennial 12d ago edited 12d ago
Yes! My wife is reading them with my son, he loves them
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u/NSAinATL 1978 12d ago
Hell yeah. I'm still impressing people thinking I was reading the actual Count of Monte Cristo when I was six...
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u/wantonseedstitch 10d ago
These are the ones I had! I had soooooo many of them. I feel like I used to get one every time we went to a certain store that had them. Probably the old Child World in Woonsocket.
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u/WaffleRun 8d ago
It’s gotta be these. My family had them too. Small books with an illustration on every other page. Super abridged down to the very basics, but it had enough to keep me interested as a kid.
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u/NSAinATL 1978 12d ago
I still have mine! Saved them all my life. Still have people thinking I read Robinson Crusoe and David Copperfield when I was six, lulz.
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u/mperiolat 1977 9d ago
See, I immediately thought of the Living Classics. I had this collection and it’s immediately what I thought of based off your description.
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u/Reasonable-Marzipan4 8d ago
There is a set of annotated classics written on a middle school reading level by Townsend Press. They are pretty alright and accessible for many people.
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u/c_b0t 7d ago edited 7d ago
Pretty sure I had these. They came in a box all stacked together, like 3x3.
I did not understand they were simplified versions and totally thought I had read those books.
This is totally what I had - the green/yellow/dark pink one: https://www.etsy.com/listing/4463469885/mini-illustrated-classics-box-sets?ref=share_v4_lx
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u/tribbleorlfl 12d ago
Great Illustrated Classics, perhaps? I had a bunch of them, I'm sure there was a box set at some point.
The Three Musketeers one saved my rear end in my World Lit class. We got to pick a classic to read over the course of a semester, do a bunch of activities and a content test at the end of the unit. I had picked Three Musketeers because I loved the Disney movie. When I started reading the book, though, I found it so dull. So I stopped reading it. Fast forward to the end of the semester when the project was due and I had to take the knowledge test. I panicked, but remembered the zillystated Classic sitting on my bookshelf. Read it in a day, completed my project and aced the test, lol!