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Rating: 
Summary: Most Amazing Book Ever
Review: I give this book five stars because it is very fun and it teaches me vocabulary. This book is fun because this dog has to travel far from his family and has many fun adventures. It teaches us vocabulary by using them in a sentence.
Rating:
Summary: Very well-written and not dumbed-down!
Review: I have to disagree with a former reviewer...I was quite surprised to see the negativity about this book. I think my standards for quality writing are pretty high...I will not read twaddle to my kids! Also when I read it I remarked to myself that wow, a book written (re)written in the 1990s and not politically-correct, as I hate those types of books, for example modern Nancy Drew books... Someone once said (and I forget who), "80% of the books were written after 1971 and 80% of those should have been left trees." If I have the date wrong, someone can correct me, but that is the date I would use if I were talking about poorly written books. Now granted, I have never read the original version. In fact, this is the first version I ever read and was pleased that it wasn't what I expected, having only ever seen the t.v. version. The illustrations are amazing and the language is very moving...we are swept up with emotion (me and my 5 year old) and I keep making him wait to read the next "chapter" which leaves us hanging and wanting more! It's written in 3 Parts and I'm seeing how this could be used as a wonderful living book to study dogs, Scotland, aristocracy, class systems, dog shows, the coal mines, tea time <g>, animal cruelty and proper handling, England, ethics and character issues (faithfulness, loyalty, kindness, sacrifice, perseverance, honor, etc.) I'm sure you smarty-pants are all aware of the fact that Lassie was originally written in 1938 as a short-story and then 1940 as a novel, but I was only familiar with the American tv show version...quite different! Lassie is a beloved dog of a poor family who have to sell her. The rich duke buys her for showing, but Lassie will have none of it, and at 4 pm everyday she takes off to her real home. Fed up, the duke sends her up to Scotland to stay. This is the story of a kind little girl, a determined dog, the trials and tribulations of Lassie's travel and the sacrificial love of the father of the poor family. That's the quick summary, but there is so much more to this story than meets the eye. I hope you all get a chance to soak up this book with your kids...ALL ages will love it from 5 to 95! That's my definition of a living book.
Rating:
Summary: Very well-written and not dumbed-down!
Review: I have to disagree with a former reviewer...I was quite surprised to see the negativity about this book. I think my standards for quality writing are pretty high...I will not read twaddle to my kids! Also when I read it I remarked to myself that wow, a book written (re)written in the 1990s and not politically-correct, as I hate those types of books, for example modern Nancy Drew books... Someone once said (and I forget who), "80% of the books were written after 1971 and 80% of those should have been left trees." If I have the date wrong, someone can correct me, but that is the date I would use if I were talking about poorly written books. Now granted, I have never read the original version. In fact, this is the first version I ever read and was pleased that it wasn't what I expected, having only ever seen the t.v. version. The illustrations are amazing and the language is very moving...we are swept up with emotion (me and my 5 year old) and I keep making him wait to read the next "chapter" which leaves us hanging and wanting more! It's written in 3 Parts and I'm seeing how this could be used as a wonderful living book to study dogs, Scotland, aristocracy, class systems, dog shows, the coal mines, tea time , animal cruelty and proper handling, England, ethics and character issues (faithfulness, loyalty, kindness, sacrifice, perseverance, honor, etc.) I'm sure you smarty-pants are all aware of the fact that Lassie was originally written in 1938 as a short-story and then 1940 as a novel, but I was only familiar with the American tv show version...quite different! Lassie is a beloved dog of a poor family who have to sell her. The rich duke buys her for showing, but Lassie will have none of it, and at 4 pm everyday she takes off to her real home. Fed up, the duke sends her up to Scotland to stay. This is the story of a kind little girl, a determined dog, the trials and tribulations of Lassie's travel and the sacrificial love of the father of the poor family. That's the quick summary, but there is so much more to this story than meets the eye. I hope you all get a chance to soak up this book with your kids...ALL ages will love it from 5 to 95! That's my definition of a living book.
Rating:
Summary: Most Amazing Book Ever
Review: The beautiful illustrations can't make up for the bland, dumbed-down text of this rip-off. The title seems to be a deliberate attempt to mislead the buyer into thinking they are getting Eric Knight's wonderful story. Not a chance. The story is re-written, badly. If you think your children are not bright enough to understand Eric Knight's beautiful, evocative, direct and vivid prose, or if you are too busy to bother to take the time to read it to them, or if you want to enrich a company that tries to trick people into buying a book, then I guess you can. More discerning parents and readers should take the trouble to search out Eric Knight's original. Mr Knight's depiction of the beautiful collie's travails on her long journey home will touch the stoniest heart. For the ambitious reader, try to find a copy of the Saturday Review (1932?) with Knight's original short story. He expanded it into the novel, and it contains such scenes as some people walking down a country road who happen to notice a ragged collie sleeping "in a ditch, with her nose pointed south" -- toward, of course, home. Readers and animal lovers deserve the real thing, not this cynical attempt at money-making.
Rating: 
Summary: dumbed-down w/ misleading title & beautiful illustrations
Review: The beautiful illustrations can't make up for the bland, dumbed-down text of this rip-off. The title seems to be a deliberate attempt to mislead the buyer into thinking they are getting Eric Knight's wonderful story. Not a chance. The story is re-written, badly. If you think your children are not bright enough to understand Eric Knight's beautiful, evocative, direct and vivid prose, or if you are too busy to bother to take the time to read it to them, or if you want to enrich a company that tries to trick people into buying a book, then I guess you can. More discerning parents and readers should take the trouble to search out Eric Knight's original. Mr Knight's depiction of the beautiful collie's travails on her long journey home will touch the stoniest heart. For the ambitious reader, try to find a copy of the Saturday Review (1932?) with Knight's original short story. He expanded it into the novel, and it contains such scenes as some people walking down a country road who happen to notice a ragged collie sleeping "in a ditch, with her nose pointed south" -- toward, of course, home. Readers and animal lovers deserve the real thing, not this cynical attempt at money-making.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful!
Review: This is a must-buy because of the wonderful illustrations, which are breathtaking in their beauty and their ability to capture the essence of a boy and a dog. But make sure you also buy the original Eric Knight Lassie Come-Home novel. For the heart and soul of the novel are absent from the text of this version, and the loss is grievous indeed. The novel shows real, cranky people struggling hard with moral choices, and hurting when they are bound to make the right one. The novel also guides the reader into concluding on her own that living things cannot rightfully be sold, unlike this version, which just blats it out. Moral lessons that children reach on their own are the ones that become deeply rooted, so it is a shame to deny them this process of moral discovery. The realism of the novel is absent from this version, which presents stick figures spouting politically correct platitudes that would be unthinkable in the communities that Knight described. The novel presents decidedly politically incorrect people who struggle to do the right thing. A child learns best from books that present life in its bewildering complexity. Without such guides, how will she deal with a real world that is not populated with politically correct stick figures? The ideal version of Lassie Come-Home would merge these illustrations, which are the best I've ever seen, with the original novel.
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