"A Christmas Carol" - Wonder Books (1957) - Intro

"A Christmas Carol" (1957)
Adaptor: Arthur Beckhard
Illustrator: C.A. Murphy
Wonder Books - New York

Staying in the "Getting Kids to Read Classics" world, we land upon this adaptation of "A Christmas Carol" published by Wonder Books in 1957.

I do have my mitts on this particular item and I think it's a lot of fun, starting with the cover (shown above) which somehow screams "1957!" to me!

It's another of those books that have an illustration on every page with accompanying text. The ratio is a bout half picture/half text, which does make this more of a book for older kids than the Little Golden Books, which are mostly pictures.

The text here is a pretty straight-forward rewrite of the original story, certainly geared toward 'tweens, but I wouldn't say dumbed-down.

These excerpts give you a good idea of the feel of the whole thing:

Next, we'll look at some more of the illustrations...