The Three Musketeers by Oliver Ho Review by Andrea Vollmer

The Three Musketeers is a classic tale told and retold by generations of authors. In the Classic Starts version, this epic storyline is made wonderfully accessible to younger readers.

This version of The Three Musketeers simplifies the language and dialogue of the traditional story to appeal to a younger audience. It incorporates historical context, old world settings, and just enough unfamiliar vocabulary to keep things interesting. It also includes a fair amount of straightforward text to keep the story comprehensible and moving in a forward direction.

I read this with both of my boys when they were about seven or eight years old. Since then, they have each read it independently (at least once), and we’ve read it together twice more. I don’t think there is any other chapter book in the house that has seen so much reading and rereading! We all appreciate the themes of friendship and honor that this story contains, but more than anything else, it is the humor that keeps drawing us back.

The Three Musketeers is frequently referenced in popular culture and other various ways, and because my children have read this version, they can connect to the literature, understand the joke, or recognize the reference in a more significant way. As a parent, that is a wonderful thing to see. I’d highly recommend reading The Three Musketeers!