Tales from Shakespeare Paperback – Picture Book, March 8, 2004

Tales from Shakespeare, illustrated by Marcia Williams ISBN 0-7636-0441-0 Hardback(Beware of Amazon's policy to mix personal reviews and editorial reviews within item description of things with the same title but different editors, publishers, illustrators, binding, and so on. So far I only see the Marcia Williams volume linked here, but this can change.)This volume includes Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth, The Winter's Tale, Julius Ceasar, and The Tempest. Each story is told comic book style in 4 pages. Excerpts of the original language are put with the illustrations. Beneath each illustrated strip is straightforward story telling of what is going on. Around the edges of each page are illustrations representing the audience from Shakespeare's time and theater humerously commenting on the play.The illustrations are colorful and fun and completely within the spirit of Shakespeare. The reader experiences it as part of the audience of a Shakespeare play. I own multiple Marcia Williams illustrated works and love them so much I'm trying to collect all of them (but beware if you click on Marcia Williams, some of what Amazon lists is not illustrated by her).The volume does a great job of summarizing each play while introducing the child to the fun language of Shakespeare. There is also the historical cultural element of what the audience would be like.Highly recommended for introducing the love of Shakespeare to small children. Also recommended for adults who want to be introduced to Shakespeare but don't feel they can handle the full stories.

I am a book-giving great-grandma of 23 children and I give each of them a book for every gift-giving event from baby shower thru 18th birthday. This year’s theme is Shakespeare.I am giving a copy of this book to three of the children as birthday gifts. They vary in age, from seven to ten, but have in common their interest in reading graphic novels and in creating their own comic books.I think the format will interest them and it will be a fine introduction to several of Shakespeare’s tales. Unfortunately those birthdays have not yet occurred this year so I can’t comment on their actual response.

I like these books and think they could be really useful for a child who truly enjoys reading - I think I would have loved them when I was 8-12. Unfortunately my son would rather play computer games.

This book like the other ones that Marcia Williams writes is a soft cover book that is in comic book format. The wording is great for young kids and inside the comic strip there are excerpts of the actual stories being told. They are very short versions probably around six pages for each story. All in all Marcia does a great job putting the stories together and I enjoy reading them to my 6 year old.

This is a comic book style book, but still good for older readers. Very fun illustrations. The stories are done very well.

I wasn't sure I could keep the attention of our 8 year old grandson for Shakespeare. The motivation is that his Uncle is an actor and was appearing in Hamlet---I wanted him to have an acquaintance with what that meant. I took a chance and ordered this book because it had a cartoony format that I thought might appeal to him. then I leaned on him to read it with me. Sure enough, once he got into it, we made it through this version of Hamlet. He chose what parts we would each read.....my goal for the summer is to do other plays in this book. So creative and cleverly done, they do have what this generation seems to need to keep their attention.

I decided to write these comments after reading a series of very silly criticisms/critques in the official review section. What trivia! Once again, I find myself wondering how people EVER get their jobs in the industry until they can find something negative to say about things...That said, my grandchildren had these books from when they were about four years old (because the older one may have been six by that time). They absolutely adored reading them, as did all of their grown-ups. When they couldn't read the words for themselves, they would sit and study the really wonderful pictures/art work.Now they are 12 and 10 years old, and the 10-year old's SPECIFIC request for a trip to England this summer is to SEE a Shakespeare play AT the Old Globe! She's seen at least two "Shakespeare in the Park" versions and now want to experience the "real thing". I credit this almost entirely to this wonderful series of books--get them all! The kids will love them. (And ignore the negative silliness--seriously, it's just silly--they couldn't think of anything else to say.)One Proud Nana!

I bought this book thinking that I'd read it to my four and six year old. Yeah, that's not going to happen. Shakespeare is just not for little kids. Even in this format it is too much information and the plot too complicated to keep little ones interested. My older kids however, love this book because it gives them a quick summary.