A few years ago, during the annual First Presidency Christmas Devotional, President Thomas S. Monson gave a talk titled, "Because He Came." In this talk, he shared the three things he traditionally reads each and every Christmas season and what they mean to him. One of the three was the story "The Mansion" written long ago by Henry Van Dyke. Though President Monson shared a brief summary of the story in his talk, I figured that if this is a story the prophet reads every year, I should at least read it once in my life.
As per usual, Deseret Book jumped on that and published a new edition of the story in its own book. This being the 100th Anniversary Edition, it contains both the original story as written by Van Dyke, and an abridged picture book version for younger children. This book is very well done, and it lends itself perfectly to a one-day lesson on what unabridged and abridged mean. Further, it exposes children to the rich language of the original, while also bringing the meaning of the story to younger minds not yet full able to understand that language.
When I shared this with my children, I read aloud the original unabridged version first. I wanted to see if they would be able to understand and follow it before I gave them the simplified version. Every so often I paused reading and asked questions. If we came to a word we/they were unfamiliar with, we searched its meaning. Happily, they were able to follow it. Then we talked about what abridged books are and I read the picture book story. Both versions are short enough to make this an easy-to-grasp lesson in one afternoon, as opposed to reading two whole novels over the course of days or weeks to see the difference.
I will say that everyone should read Henry Van Dyke's original unabridged story. If you think that knowing the summary of this story is enough because you "get" the meaning, think again. I learned a lot from the son in this story and the dialogue between him and his father, which isn't well represented in the abridged version, or a summary. While it's important to know the moral of this story, a summary is just half a serving of the meal this story is.
