The New York Times’ sensationalizing of the practice of abridging adult nonfiction titles for a younger audience rather misses the point, which is about commerce, not censorship. The main difference between the adult and juvenile editions of these titles is that the latter are shorter, provide less background material, and are less detailed. As an avid young reader of adult biographies I would have delighted in abridgments that skipped all the stuff about the subjects’ forbears. Of course, I could just do it myself and did. Maybe if we all loosened up a bit about just what “reading a whole book” means, more kids might relax more at the prospect of “difficult” books.

But if Laura Hillenbrand was so hot to rethink Unbroken for a new audience–or even just for me–she could have used the second chance to lose what is possibly my least favorite metaphor of 2014: “Forests of men had gone down at the sight of her.”

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