Unbroken: An Olympian’s Journey Adaptation

Kids love this book. I received my book super-fast and as described.

Do you want to know how Louie Zamperini, an Olympian, survived in a Japanese P.O.W camp? If that sounds interesting to you, then I recommend you read Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand.
Although I encourage you to read the book, if you are not comfortable with violence, I wouldn’t suggest it.
This fascinating story shows the perspective of a poor family. In the book Louie steals to get food for himself. In addition to stealing, the Zamperinis ran out of money at the end of each week and were forced to improvise food.
If you like studying WWII, then you will like this book. One point to support this is that a lot of the story is about Louie, the main character, being in the U.S. Army Air Forces. Another example is it shows the treatment of P.O.W.s during the war.
This book also has a lot of show don’t tell writing which means the author describes what characters are feeling or what is happening instead of just saying it. One example of this is, “Louie was standing in dust, sweating,” which explains it was hot. Another example is, “There was a pulse of light,” which means there was an explosion.
To sum it all up, I recommend this book because it shows the perspective of a poor family, WWII history and a lot of show don’t tell. The best part is it’s a true story!

My ten-year-old reads well above grade level, but is still reluctant. Like many boys, he just doesn’t want to sit still long enough to get through a story! He likes adventure stories, so I thought he would enjoy listening to the audio version of “Unbroken,” while following along in the book. No dice. I lost him at the word “dirigible.”

So I was delighted to learn that a young adult version was on the horizon, and I immediately pre-ordered both the Kindle and audio versions. I am pleased to report that I think this will do the trick.

Of course, the first thing I did upon receiving the new version, was to turn to Chapter One to see if the word “dirigible” had been changed! It is now “airship.” Then I went back to the beginning and did a side-by-side comparison of both. The changes were immediately apparent:
On the first page, the previous version read: Somewhere on the endless expanse of the Pacific Ocean, Army Air Forces bombardier and Olympic runner Louie Zamperini lay across a small raft, drifting westward.
The new version read: Somewhere on the Pacific Ocean, American military airman and Olympic runner Louie Zamperini lay on a small raft, drifting.
In a nutshell, Hillenbrand deleted “the endless expanse of,” and simplified Zamperini’s title from “Army Air Forces bombardier,” to “American military airman.”

Looking randomly through the two books, I’m seeing other instances of abridgement, as well as simplified language. I have high hopes that my young reader will now enjoy this story. I’m excited at the prospect, as I think our children need to read more stories about people like Mr. Zamperini. He is easily the bravest, most remarkable person I’ve ever read about, and a fine example of what we hope our young people will choose to emulate.

A final thought: I’m an avid reader, but I wish this version had been out when I read the original. While still long, it is shorter than the first book, and I wouldn’t consider this one to be at all “dumbed down.” It would not be inappropriate for an adult to read this version instead of the other.

I have read the adult version of this book and it was amazing. My almost 12 year old was reading this youth edition, and loving the story. He stopped though when he got to page 116 and there was a picture of a survivor after 24 days at sea who was extremely skinny. The picture shook my son up (maybe because it was later at night), and he said he didn’t want to finish the book because of the pictures. I flipped through the rest of the book and there were a few pics of emaciated POW’s and one of a dead body ( not showing face) of a person who had starved to death. I wish I had a heads up before I gave him the book so I could have talked to him before and he would have been prepared. I think the pictures are totally in context and appropriate for the audience, but maybe preview first for a more sensitive reader.

I bought this for my teen son. It arrived in less than 24 hrs in excellent condition. He was so excited to start reading it after reading the description. I gave it to him this evening and he has not put it down.

Such a wonderful Story for my 10 year old son to read with his dad. We’ve been learning about wwii in our homeschool and this story was a beautiful compliment to the complexities of POW and the strength and resilience of the silent generation. It was well adapted to a younger audience without removing the drama and accuracy of war. Well done.