The Time Machine (A Stepping Stone Book)

My son is required to read 20 minutes per day. He reads quite fast, and I'm always on the lookout for suitable books for him. There are tons of books out there, but the challenge is to find quality books that keep his interest.I love the Stepping Stones Classic series. My son read several books in that series, and I found that they indeed made master pieces accessible to young readers while being true to the spirit of the originals.He has read Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, The Jungle Book.I look forward to see him enjoy the other books in this wonderful series.

Great little story just right for a 5-6 year old who loves science and space travel and is becoming interested in time, present, past and future. I read aloud every day to my grandson, and this book was a tremendous hit. Great to have a classic redone in an age-appropriate way that did not take too much away from the original.

I got this book for my son, who is ten. Such a great read and this book is a great fit for his reading level and comprehension.

My son loves to read it!

I loved this book as a child and now my child is loving reading and purchaseing this book from your company was great.

I would call this a masterpiece H.G. Wells of tragic picture of all mankind. In this outstanding fantastic work the author put the hopes and aspirations of his contemporaries. These dreams are prevalent in modern society. The main character creates a time machine and performs a dizzying journey through time. In some incomprehensible way he gets into the distant future, in which it attains the horror and terrible disappointment. Why? Because he sees how humanity is finally degraded in the evolutionary plan. Around dominates nature and there are the remains of architectural structures. But people are like helpless children. They have forgotten how to think. This is a terrible discovery. But somewhere beneath the earth live scary creatures called "Morlocks". These monsters are full of aggression and ruthless to those who live on the earth's surface. All these horrifying metamorphosis is forced to watch a brilliant scientist. But his journey did not stop there and he makes another leap into the future. And what a paradox! He almost becomes a witness to the end of the earth itself. All these scenes are described accurately and after reading about, one feels that the reader himself has returned from the future. This is a unique novel by H. G. Wells, filled with philosophy and wisdom.

This book contains so many sentence fragments and run-on sentences that I was unable to use it with the students I work with. I'm not sure if it was just poorly edited, or if that is the norm now with some of these adaptations but it's definitely not acceptable in most classrooms and it does a huge disservice to the original.I had been looking forward to introducing some reluctant readers to this story, as we had already read and enjoyed many other titles in this series.The other Stepping Stone Classics are really well written so this was a big disappointment. I will avoid any adaptations by this author in future. Our students have enough difficulty putting a coherent paragraph together without internalizing this type of example.

Amazon.com has the reviews of various editions thrown together willy-nilly, so let me make clear that my review is of the "Bullseye Step Into Classics" edition, which is a complete rewrite and abridgement of Wells' original. I know many people feel such abridged versions are sacrilegious and yet another sign of the decline of civilization, but they can be a godsend for beginning readers of English. My son has been raised in Japan, and while he can understand spoken English and can speak it fairly well, reading is still difficult. At ten years of age, he is a sophisticated reader of Japanese, so "Dick and Jane" cannot hold his interest. Books like Martin's adaptation of The Time Machine allow him to use and expand his English while also providing entertainment that is not condescending. Martin's adaptation in particular is very good. I read a similar adaptation of Frankenstein (also published by Random House) by Larry Weinberg that was annoying precisely because it is condescending. Just because one is confined to a beginning vocabularly and simple syntax doesn't mean one needs to adopt a Barney-the-Dinosaur tone. My only complaint about Martin's adaptation is his use of incomplete sentences. I understand that he is trying to avoid complex sentences and perhaps create dramatic pauses, but I don't want my son to think that it's all right to write sentences that lack a subject or verb. Random House publishes many of these "streamlined" classics. Keeping in mind that the quality of the adaptations apparently varies, I suggest you read a few pages before deciding to buy any of them. Martin's Time Machine, though, is a winner. It was a real joy to hear my son reading whole English sentences without trouble. The story excited him, and reading the book by himself (with some help from me) boosted his confidence enormously. At this rate, he'll someday be ready for the original century-old text!

My 8 year old enjoyed this book.

Ammettendo che l'ho comprato pensando che fosse il libro originale e non un libro per bambini, l'ho letto comunque per allenamento e per curiosità è scritto in modo abbastanza semplice, adatto ai ragazzi e alle persone con un inglese di livello medio basso come allenamento. 3 stelle solo perché sono stato "ingannato" dalla presentazione che potrebbe essere più chiara

Good for children around 12 years age. A captivating and interesting story in simple language with illustrations. Price should be lesser.