Shakespeare's Stories

In this volume, five plays are retold in modern English. The three tragedies and two comedies are well chosen to appeal to a young audience and the collection is balanced. All are well-known and children are likely to come across most of them in production at some point. A difficult task this -- to convey the spirit and atmosphere of Shakespeare's texts in a coherent and convincing way to a new audience. Birch's retelling is workmanlike rather than inspiring, setting appropriate quotes into her own sometimes verbose text, adding much dramatic detail but not always achieving clarity. The illustrations framing every page are varied in style -- echoing Italian Renaissance paintings in Romeo and Juliet, Chagall in Midsummer Night's Dream, and Munch in the depiction of Macbeth's witches. Characters are not always clearly-enough defined, and the strength of Shakespeare's females in particular is not well-served by overly sweet, pretty images. A potentially useful collection, well worth considering for 10-13 year olds, though by no means accessible to all in that age range.