Product Description

Out, damned spot! A brilliant retelling of this classic tale of witches, murder and madness. With Notes on Shakespeare and the Globe Theatre and Evil in Macbeth.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #75981 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10-30
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 64 pages

Review
"An excellent introduction to Shakespeare for the junior reader." The School Librarian "Andrew Matthews admirably conveys the beauty and power of the original plays. The text is full of the rhythms of spoken language and begs to be read aloud." Junior Education "The retelling of the plays is done with great individual style." The Bookseller

About the Author
Andrew Matthews has written numerous books for children and teenagers, and is an internationally renowned author. He wrote King Arthur and Wolf Summer for the Orchard list, as well as a series of retellings of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales. Andrew has been short-listed twice for the Smarties Award. He lives in Berkshire. Tony Ross is one of the most highly regarded children's book creators/illustrators in Britain. For Orchard he illustrated the Greek and Roman Myths books in the Orchard Myths range, and the hilarious One and Only series by Laurence Anholt, as well as the poetry collection Balloon Lagoon. Tony lives in Wales.

Customer Reviews

Excellent condensation aimed at younger readers
I have just got through reading this to my eight-year old as a bedtime story - In truth Macbeth's plot is probably a bit grim to guarantee sweet dreams, but nonetheless the brief novelisations of the Shakespeare Stories series are terrific. It's about a twenty minute read so is perfectly feasible to get through in a single sitting, and is expertly paced, elegantly written, the dialogue has a pleasingly scottish air, and it succeeds very well in accentuating the major dramatic and figurative themes of the play, and includes a couple of pages of summary and context at the end. So much so that it's really not a bad encapsulation of the story for any reader without the inclination to wade through the bard's own iambic pentameter.

Our youngster was riveted throughout. It is typeset in nice big text and there are (Quentin) Blake-esque pen and ink illustrations dotted liberally thoughout, so this would be a pretty good self-reader too, for the eight to twelve bracket.

Olly Buxton

Macbeth - Shakespeare stories set.
This whole series of books is excellent. Originally bought for a teenager studying Shakespeare and struggling to understand the language - a quick read through this book and the characters and storyline are clear which made tackling the original version much easier.
This copy was bought for my 9 year old daughter, who read the book in just over an hour, recounting the story accurately and finding it engaging and entertaining. She is now ready to study the book further.
The books are also great for adults who missed out on the Shakespeare experience but would like to have some understanding of each of the stories.A Midsummer Night's Dream (Shakespeare Stories)Twelfth Night (Shakespeare Stories)Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare Stories)Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare Stories)Hamlet (Shakespeare Stories)Richard III (Shakespeare Stories)