Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) trained for the ministry, became a political journalist, and finally, to many, became "the father of the English novel." He is also the author of Moll Flanders.

Ignoring the advice of his wise father, who begged him to choose an honest life close to home, Crusoe heads to sea and almost dies three times before ending up on his deserted isle. He chooses a life of a plantation owner, hiring slaves to do much of his work. He chooses to ignore the teachings of God, and puts himself at the top of his own kingdom. On a journey to collect slaves to increase productivity on his plantation, his ship wrecks on the rocks of an island. All are lost but him. He saves some provisions from his ship, but has to work the land on his own to survive nearly three decades in solitude. It isn't until one lucky Friday that Crusoe's isolation ends and his purgatory is over.

Defoe's book is really a treatise on humility, of suffering for the sake of one's soul and finding one's place in the world. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Crusoe, alone for 400 pages, keeps our attention to the end.

This is a children's edition, put out by Simon and Schuster's Aladdin Paperbacks. What makes this a children's addition is the foreword by Avi, a children's author, and the reading guide at the end worded for children.

But there's little, really, to distinguish this edition from others. As a book for children, Robinson Crusoe needs more than a few simplistic questions and a wispy introduction. There is much in this book from another age that parents and children will want to discuss: racism, slavery, misuse of your fellow man, cannibalism, butchery. Defoe's readers believed that cannibals inhabited many of the unchartered islands of the southern hemisphere, and the children of today, though not stupid, will need guidance to disavow them of this same incorrect thought and others. We should not censor this book -- it's as much historical document as it is literature -- but parents should be aware of what their children are reading, read it with them, and help them understand the world as it was (and wasn't) 300 years ago.

I would have given this book 5 stars (Robinson Crusoe alone deserves 5 stars) except for the mistakes on the back cover --Unabridged spelled "Unabrdiged" -- and in Avi's foreword -- foreword spelled "foreward," comma splices, and a reference to Crusoe's 24 years on the island (he was on the island 28 years!). Errors creep into most books, but in a children's book a publisher should take more care to ensure that the information is accurate.

This is a beautiful edition, marred by errors and lacking in supporting reading. Any other edition would suffice.