Review (PDF) Shakespeare's Stories For Young Readers (Dover Children's Classics)
Twelve of Shakespeare's greatest tales come to life in this entertaining collection of short, lively stories specially adapted for young readers. Capturing the vital events and using some of the original wording, the stories serve as a perfect introduction to Shakespeare for preteens and as literate refreshers for older folks.Fulfilling a request from her own children, author Edith Nesbit turned twelve of the Bard's most famous plays into delightful tales of kings, queens, ghosts, and witches. Filled with tragedy, humor, and moral lessons, the stories — told with wit and grace — include Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, King Lear, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Cymbeline, The Taming of the Shrew, Pericles, and The Winter's Tale.Wonderfully transformed by the noted author of children's books, these classics are a great way to start a lifelong interest in the works of Shakespeare.
Series: Dover Children's Classics
Paperback: 80 pages
Publisher: Dover Publications (March 3, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0486447626
ISBN-13: 978-0486447629
Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 0.2 x 8.4 inches
Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #22,036 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #6 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Dramas & Plays > Children's #32 in Books > Literature & Fiction > British & Irish > Shakespeare > Works #55 in Books > Children's Books > Literature & Fiction > Short Story Collections
Age Range: 8 - 14 years
Grade Level: 4 - 8
E. Nesbit has written many children's books. The one I'm most familiar with is The Railway Children. I really like that book and it influenced my decision to purchase this book. In the introduction of Shakespeare's Stories for Young Children, E. Nesbit explains her reasons for writing this book. She explains that her children love Shakespeare's story lines but at the time were too young to enjoy the actual play. So she took some of Shakespeare's most famous plays and summarized them, making it easier for children to understand. Shakespeare's influence is found everywhere and I wanted my children to be familiar with his plays. However Shakespeare didn't write for children and I know mine wouldn't understand the language and would be bored in a matter of pages. E. Nesbit did a great job explaining the stories. My children were able to comprehend the stories with little explanation. Each chapter is a different play and about six pages. She also includes direct quotes from the plays. It's the perfect introduction to Shakespeare for young children.
As readers can tell from the title of this review, I cannot recommend it enough.I bought this book for my eight year old who is very interested in Shakespeare but still years away from fully grasping his language. She loves the book and I love reading it aloud to her.SSfYR is presented in chapter book form without illustrations. Nesbit writes beautifully, always respecting the intelligence of her young audience, as well as the traditions behind subject matter she is conveying. Each tale gets its due, while yet being pared down to a digestible size for pre-adolescents. Her language is rich and lively, and her insights are inserted as charming asides that offer an adult's perspective without vering into didactic or moralistic homilies.If your pre-teen is bright, sensitive and looking for a good read, this is the book to buy!
This book has been perfect for my daughter who is learning delayed and has reading issues. Her high school class was reading the real Shakespeare plays, and there was no way she could do that. She has been reading this with her tutor and she has enjoyed it and she is also able to discuss Shakespeare to some degree with her age mates. Such a blessing!
The stories are watered down for kids, but nothing is added that shouldn't be there. It's a great way to get a child familiarized with the stories so they will be better able to understand what is going on when they do get to the full stories. It's not a vocabulary builder and in case you have objections about some things Romeo & Juliet still kill themselves and people die and get killed in the stories. They did not take away from the stories for the kids. It's very, very summarized. Still it's a good introduction for anyone who want's a quick way to know about the stories. Not all of them are there. I'm a bit disappointed some of my favorites were omitted.
Great for familiarizing your children with Shakespeare. It is easy reading. Can be used for children who refuse to read books without pictures. There are no pictures, but the large print is inviting and non-threatening.
At first I was not sure whether my 11-year old son would love the way the stories were presented. To my surprize, he kept asking for more and more once we finished the first one, and he had smiles throughout the reading that I did for him. Now he will be reading them himself as well. Great book!
Very good prep for my family to see a performance of Taming of the Shrew. It was very effective in enabling them to immediately identify the characters and helped to keep their interest as the story unfolded onstage.
I liked this Shakespeare story book, but for my 5 to 7 students there was much to be left out and paraphrased. I think 3rd gade and up it would be great. It served my purpose when Shakespeare was our "famous person", but I could have made do with just a few plays and a biographical overview.
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