Acknowledging that the literary quality of children's stories strongly affects reading comprehension and interest in reading, a study examined how inside view (the insight an author provides about a character's thoughts and feelings) affects the presentation of character beliefs and plans. The study was based on the following premises: (1) basal readers often include adaptations of original fiction that have been altered for readability and/or length; (2) especially when altered for length, these adaptations leave out much of the inside view that can affect communication between author and reader and, thereby, reading comprehension; and (3) inside view can be examined using interacting plans analysis, which focuses on character-to-character interaction, highlighting the interdependent character plans and the critical beliefs which the real reader must comprehend if the text is to be interpreted as the real author intends. Using this interacting plans analysis, the story "Freckle Juice" by J. Blume was compared line by line with an adapted basal version to determine whether event structure, character plans, and inside view of the original were retained in the adaptation, which deleted approximately one-third of the original but did not alter vocabulary or sentence structure. The study concluded that deletions do not necessarily affect comprehension of main events, but may make it more difficult to understand why characters act in certain ways. Adaptations may remove subtle features, such as inside view, which make the original more interesting and comprehensible. (A three-page bibliography, figures illustrating interacting plans, and a table outlining deletions are appended.) (SRT)