It's seen as a worthy goal, introducing children to classics, and thus we get many "young reader" or "young adult" editions of an entire library's worth of literature. Most typically, difficult or complex sentences are simplified, along with vocabulary. Plot lines may also be streamlined or discarded to keep the story direct and short. This version, published by Bullseye, an imprint of Random House, aims at the youngest audience of all adaptions I've seen. You'll recognize the cover if you see it in a bookstore because on it, Jean Valjean looks like Benjamin Franklin. Here are the vital statistics.

Publisher: Bullseye Step Into Classics, an imprint of Random House
By: Victor Hugo
Adapted by: Monica Kulling
Cover illustration by: Bill Dodge
Date of publication: 1995
Number of pages: 106

Table of Contents
1. The Journey's End
2. Monsieur Madeline
3. Fantine
4. "I Am Jean Valjean"
5. Number 9,430
6. Cosette
7. Night Hunt
8. Meeting Marius
9. Trapped!
10. Escape to Rue Plumet
11. At the Barricade
12. In the Paris Sewer
13. The Day That Follows Night

This version appears to be written at a level appropriate to third or possibly fourth graders. There are no illustrations, but the print is large, and the sentences simple, though there are some more advanced vocabulary words sprinkled in. Overall, it remains remarkably true to the original plot (although it excises every infamous tangent), but there's one thing that's unavoidably noticeable and somewhat strange. Witness the first two paragraphs:

Years ago I stole a loaf of bread to feed my hungry family. I was sent to prison and sentenced to hard labor. I traded my name for a number. I was no longer Jean Valjean. For nineteen years, I was known as number 24,601. That was a dark, lonely time for me.

Now I am old and dying. I write this for my daughter, Cosette. When she reads it she will know the truth. I hope she can forgive me. I hope she will understand why I did not tell everything sooner.

Obviously, the first thing there is to notice about this adaption is that it's told in the first person. Only in the end, as Jean Valjean finishes his autobiographical narrative and the pen slips from his exhausted fingers, does the story switch to the third person. Perhaps the editors thought it would be a way to draw kids into the book and make it more immediate. But still. Jean Valjean may be the literary character that is the most unsuitable for first-person narrative ever. First-person narrative is not in his nature. He is always self-effacing, as a rule he prefers not to draw attention to himself, and he is most concerned with the bad things that he has done rather than the good. To dredge up his painful (especially to him) past, particularly in his weak condition, is just about unthinkable. Not to mention that in the real novel, the letter he writes is not his complete life story. On the other hand, the first-person narrative might draw a younger person into the story, which is, after all, about an old man and probably not the most intuitively interesting subject matter for a ten-year-old.

Aside from this gaffe, Valjean's character remains generally intact—mostly because the events in the plot remain the same. However, the epic struggle that engages the reader throughout the novel—Valjean's recurring challenge to become and remain a good man—isn't articulated very well in this version of the story. The clearest example of this is during the chapter, "I Am Jean Valjean." Simply put, he's not very conflicted. After Javert tells him about the capture of "Jean Valjean" and leaves, Valjean says, "It was a difficult choice.... I knew what I would be going back to. But I also knew I couldn't let an innocent man go to prison in my place." And that's it. Valjean hires the cart, arrives (sans the many stops and obstacles Hugo includes in his account of Valjean's journey to Arras—the book's only 106 pages and had to skimp on some stuff), watches some of the trial, then confesses.

Similarly, when Jean Valjean lifts the cart, we get Javert telling him, "I have only known one man who could lift a load like this on his back. I knew him when I was warden in the Toulon prison."

And Valjean responding internally, "Toulon. How long was it since I'd heard that name spoken? Memories of my years in prison rushed in on me. Javert was watching closely. But I couldn't let Fauchelevent die."

Whether or not Valjean would, in retrospect, dwell on his difficult choices is a moot point. The choices he makes are central to the book, and without his interior monologues, the story seems threadbare. The drama of the struggles that go on within the characters are is lost.

An interesting thing, though, is that Jean Valjean clearly describes himself as jealous of Marius. After meeting Marius and assessing the danger the young man represents, Valjean says, "I wanted my life with Cosette to go on forever. She was the only happiness I had ever known. I moved us to a new house. The walks in the garden stopped." The adaptation goes so far as to give this as Valjean's reason for fleeing to England:

I discovered later that Thénardier's daughter Éponine knew the streets of Paris well. She found our place and told Marius.

We couldn't move somewhere else in the city. We had to leave the country. We would move to England!

Also, some of the emotions that Hugo writes of in Valjean, Valjean speaks of himself, though often to a lesser extent. The best instance of this comes when he describes how he feels about the eight-year-old Cosette.

How I came to love my Cosette! I had never loved anything or anyone before. I had never been a father, a lover, a husband, or even a friend.

Cosette's love gave me hope. She became my daughter. And I became her father. Sometimes I thought my heart would burst with tenderness.

The words are taken almost verbatim from the original, and especially considering the reference to being a lover, is surprising in a children's adaptation; it's also laudable. In fact, many familiar scenes are taken almost literally from Hugo, including the scene in which Javert asks to be dismissed (because resigning is not honorable) and the somewhat strange exchange between Valjean and Javert at the sewer entrance:

"Who are you?"

"Myself."

"Who is that?"

"Jean Valjean."

While this version stays very close to Hugo's plot—Valjean returns to prison after Fantine's death and escapes during the incident on the Orion; Valjean lodges in the Gorbeau House after originally coming to Paris with Cosette; Thénardier carries out his extortion plot in the Gorbeau House, complete with his attempt to sell the "noble patron" the sign of the Sergeant at Waterloo Inn, and Marius foils it; Marius gradually makes Jean Valjean realize he's unwelcome in his house after learning he's a convict and Valjean asks Cosette to call him "Monsieur Jean"—there are some discrepancies and glossing over. When Marius and Cosette arrive at Valjean's deathbed, all forgiven on Marius's part, there's no mention of how he learned that Valjean saved him on the barricades. All Marius says is, "Now I know what you did for me.... Why didn't you tell me? It is I who asks forgiveness of you.... You saved my life.... Even more, you gave me Cosette! I can never repay you." Apparently, Thénardier tipped him off in between chapters. Also, Marius never thinks that Valjean killed Javert; he only thinks Valjean stole the 600,000 francs he gave Cosette at the wedding.

The Thénardiers' inn is also mostly the same. Eponine and Azelma are there, and Jean Valjean trumps their toys by buying Cosette a doll (there's no mention of it being Christmas eve, though). Valjean buys Cosette from the Thénardiers, he shows the letter to Thénardier, and when the latter follows him and Cosette, Valjean grips his walking stick to warn him off.

However, although Thénardier is there in the sewer to sell Valjean the key to the grate, the rest of the family doesn't appear much. They're there (Azelma unhappily bleeding near the broken window) at the Gorbeau House, but after that incident, Eponine disappears from the story and consequently doesn't carry any notes and doesn't die on the barricades. Gavroche, too, is absent from the barricade and from the rest of the story as well. His character didn't make the cut, which is understandable if the story is told by Valjean, but also strange because he's of an age with the book's target audience. There is no mention of how Eponine feels for Marius—a consequence of Valjean's first-person narrative. Valjean has no opportunity to learn much about Eponine. The problem of Valjean's limited point of resurfaces in other places too, such as when Marius's role in the Gorbeau House affair is told: it's related somewhat improbably with the explanation "Later I would learn how Marius saved my life." How would Jean Valjean learn this? We're not told.

Though some things are left out, it's a nice touch that when Jean Valjean is released from prison, he steals silver from the bishop and a coin from a boy, in the same manner as in Hugo:

I was confused when I left the bishop. I wandered the countryside in a daze. I didn't know where I was going. Nor did I care.

Memories of my years in prison flooded my mind. Suddenly I was angry. God had given me such a hard life.

A boy came walking toward me on the footpath. He was flipping a coin. The coin dropped in the dirt just as he passed me. I stamped my foot on it.

"Monsieur, my franc! It's under your foot."

I screamed at him to get lost. The look of terror in his eyes was like a wild animal's. I yelled again and the boy bolted.

I did all this without thinking. Then suddenly I saw what I had done. I was a monster! I had stolen from a child!

I broke down and wept. I prayed for forgiveness. I tried to find the boy to make things right. But he was gone.

Oddly, my anger was also gone. The bishop's love had cast it out. I was a changed man. I was truly free for the first time in my life. I have never committed another crime.

Unfortunately for accuracy's sake, Valjean does commit other crimes; living under an assumed name with forged papers isn't legal. But to move on, it's a pleasant surprise to find that dying is not skirted. "Children, I am dying," Valjean says at the end. The book brings itself to acknowledge this, instead of reverting to a happy ending. Even more surprising, Javert honestly, without prevarication—no disappearing, no dropping off the face of the book after Valjean frees him—kills himself. As Jean Valjean tells us:

I went upstairs to my room. Before calling Cosette, I looked out the window. To my astonishment, Javert was gone.

It was only later that I learned the truth. Javert threw himself into the Seine and drowned.

Maybe he couldn't bear to take me to prison. Maybe his duty to the law made it impossible for him to let me go. But I had spared his life, so he needed to spare mine.

True, because of the limitations of first-person narrative, some may bridle at the lack of character development for the novel's antagonist, but Javert's conversations with Valjean in Montreuil-sur-Mer are true to Hugo, and thus he remains recognizably himself.

Although her troubles are left mostly intact, Fantine fares a little worse, but much better than in other versions that water her down to such a point that she's a meaningless character. While the book can't bring itself to make her a prostitute—instead Valjean only says "she had been living on the streets in terrible poverty"—she is, no question, unmarried and the mother of Cosette. She explains her situation to Valjean: "I left Paris poor. I wasn't married to Cosette's father so I had no help from him. I wanted to return to Montreuil. There was a new factory. But what could I do with Cosette? The Thénardiers offered to take her in until I was settled." She also gets angry and attacks Bamatabois after the snowball incident, and she does spit in the mayor's face. Later, when Javert interrupts Valjean's interview with her, she dies. Unmistakably. "You have killed this woman," Valjean tells Javert.

To mention a few other characters briefly, Enjolras has only a few lines and is described perfunctorily as "the leader" at the barricade. Marius is commanding when Valjean arrives on the barricade, but there's really very little chance to develop his character (ardent, headstrong, silly-in-love) with Jean Valjean narrating the show. Fauchelevent is indeed the man rescued from the cart, he was definitely jealous of the mayor's success, and he does most certainly get the job at the convent. Thénardier's gang members are mentioned by name at the Gorbeau House, and Valjean is allowed to burn his arm with the poker to demonstrate their inability to coerce him.

Finally, the ending. It's sort of weird. Observe:

The old man's eyes closed for the last time. Light from two silver candlesticks fell on his face.

Cosette and Marius kissed Jean Valjean good-bye. But he could not return their kiss.

Kind of a downer, really. Why emphasize what Jean Valjean, who has already done so much, can't do? But maybe that's just me.

So there it is. It has definitely been changed and simplified, and and there are certainly some issues one could choose to take with it. But, considering that third-graders are its target, it's impressive that that much was left in and that most of the characters are given their due. Despite its arguably unavoidable omissions, it leaves the door open for someone who read it as a kid to discover more of the story when he (or she) is older.