Book Review: A Stage Full of Shakespeare Stories

A Stage Full of Shakespeare Stories by Angela McAllister

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm really struggling to imagine an age group that could be defined as 'child' that would be appropriate for Shakespeare stories. Let's face it, Shakespeare isn't just difficult to read in it's original format; but also the death, romance, betrayal, etc. is fairly adult. Maybe an advanced child of 10 or older would like this? Maybe.

Illustrations & Format
There is one lovely part of this book which is the cute illustrations and the over sized format of the pages. However I do wish the layout was broken into a couple columns to make the text less daunting. And the over sized format while fun (and in hardcover this book is heavy!) would be very awkward for most bookshelves. This feels like one of those books meant for a coffee table to spark a conversation. As a cocktail party piece it's perfect. Too bad that's not really what we want books for (lol).

Stories
I felt like each of the stories in the simplistic (and summarized) English wasn't well explained. Reading Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and MacBeth (to take a few of the really famous plays) I felt like if you didn't have context for some of the things happening (ie: know the play plot) then you might miss some key items. Maybe I was skimming as I knew all but three plays in the book; but it just felt like the content was really stripped out. As though the stories are more synopsis of what happens and less of a narrated story. I think kids will struggle with this format as well. It just doesn't draw the reader in.

Overall
While in theory this is a brilliant idea for a republishing of Shakespeare in a simpler format; I don't think A Stage Full of Shakespeare Stories really achieves what it should. I expected the format and stories to draw me in and intrigue me (as they hopefully would for children). Instead I found the text daunting with it's full page width (on over sized pages this is just bad design, where are the columns!?) and while the illustrations are adorable they are just not enough. Watching many of the modern movies or takes on these same Shakespeare plays is probably a better use of time to learn the stories outside the original text.
I give this three stars because I love the concept and idea behind it. Plus the book itself has beautiful illustrations; but overall it was quite disappointing and not what I had hoped for.

Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review.

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