Child friendly classics

[TisTheTreasonTo]

I'd like to get Dd (11) some classics for Christmas, things like The Three musketeers etc. but I think the original will be too heavy going for her. Are there any good children's adaptations of the classics around? Nothing too easy - there are some which are obviously for much younger children. It's quite hard to tell online!

She is currently reading things like Percy Jackson, the Explorer by Katherine Rundell.

Robinson Crusoe Told Anew for Children by James Baldwin is itself a classic now, although it does look rather easy, and a bit stilted to me. RC itself isn't that hard. At that age I'd already read and understood Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. But I couldn't fathom Jane Austen (who I now love) because "it's just people sitting about talking"! But what about some lighter books in the same vein: I liked Georgette Heyer.

She's not into romance at all, so I don't think she'd like the Heyer ones. I'd also read Jane Eyre at that age, but English isn't her native language and I'm not sure she would follow it easily enough to want to keep reading. I don't want to put her off!

Oxford Children’s Classics are great for that age global.oup.com/education/content/children/series/oxford-childrens-classics/?region=uk

There’s also this version of Great expectations www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Expectations-Vintage-Childrens-Classics/dp/0099589184 which my dd read at about that age.

What about classics that were intentionally written for children?

I am thinking of books like: Pollyanna, Heidi, the Secret Garden, and of course the Little House on the Praire books that are amazing. The railway children? The boxcar children?

all of these are excellent. Then tjere are lesser known literary jewels like the george mcdonald books:

https://www.searchgoodbooks.com/books/the-light-princess

Tom's Midnight Garden
Carrie's War
The Children of Green Knowe

Adding to @DisplayPurposesOnly's list -
101 Dalmatians, Alice in Wonderland, Charlotte Sometimes. None of those need abridging.

101 Dalmatians is fabulous, Dodie Smith has a brilliant sense of humour and turn of phrase!

Definitely try children’s classics. One of my dd loved A Little Princess at a similar age. She didn’t get past the truly nightmarish first chapter of The Secret Garden, though. Another dd loved To Kill a Mockingbird. All of my dc loved The Silver Sword. Anne of Green Gables and Little Women could be worth a shot.

Also, at this time of year, The Dark is Rising sequence is fabulous. And A Christmas Carol is a very easy read.