This book is for children and the illustrations are beautiful. The plays are made easy to understand for children (and adults alike A lovely book

Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

Absolutely beautiful illustrations. Quality junior versions of Shakespeare’s stories. It’s not the best writing I’ve read in a children’s book, but it does a good job of taking a whole Shakespeare play and pulling it down to about 10-ish pages each. That’s just impressive. So I would definitely recommend these junior versions of the plays to whet a kid’s palette for Shakespeare.

Shakespeare stories is a good book to introduce to children about Shakespeare's writing. The stories were easy to follow and the illustrations made reading a livelier experience.

This is the perfect book to introduce children to the bard. The illustrations are beautiful and the stories are short in length and written on a child's reading level. Ms. Newman picked 15 of Shakespeare's books including some lesser known tales. A great book that young children and an adult can enjoy together but written so the child can enjoy the book by themselves. The humor from the comedies comes across even in the simplified form. I received a copy of this ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This was a nice selection of Shakespeare. There were many I had not read and many I have heard referenced to. I was finally going to get serious and read Shakespeare! The stories were easy to read and understand. I requested a copy through NetGalley and my copy didn't have pictures but I was happy to finally find a book with this many titles in one book I could finish. No review was required. My review is voluntary.

A great introduction to Shakespeare. Really well written, designed to give children a love of Shakespeare from a young age.

A wonderful collection of accessible retellings of Shakespeare's best-known plays.

The selection covers a good variety of comedies and tragedies, and I suspect that most people, if asked to choose Shakespeare 15 most famous works, would have made the same selection.

The stories are told in easy-to-understand, simple language, suitable for the 6-10 age bracket. Ideally I would have loved to see some slightly more challenging words here and there to help develop the young reader's or listener's vocabulary, but the absence of these makes the collection even more accessible and easier for children to approach without adult input,. Other than that, I really cannot fault, it so it would be unfair to deduct any stars for this alone.

My personal favourite aspect of this book is the illustrations, which are beautiful.

Thank you to Arcturus Publishing and NetGalley for the Advance Review Copy in exchange for an honest review.

I was a little mixed on Shakespeare's Stories by the end. At the start, I was loving each retelling, finding them cleverly cut down and beautifully illustrated. While the illustrations still remained beautiful and striking throughout, after a while, it started to bother me, how and where some of the plays were trimmed. I'm also not entirely sure who this anthology would be for. Young readers would probably enjoy longer more detailed retellings, such as the Coville picture book adaptions. That said, it was a hard job reasonably well done, and the illustrations provided an eye-catching addition to the pages.

I've been reading Shakespeare since I was eight or nine, I was surrounded by his work and others as my parents were readers and my Father, an English teacher. I have loved his work, begged to go to the Globe and visit his home etcetera and love his plays and Sonnets...

I say this to explain why I simply had to read a book designed to introduce children to a man whose very works made our language today. I was drawn to the cover first, finding the artwork exquisite and my curiosity spiked.

Then I began to read the stories.

Whilst I understand that this is an adaptation of his work and they have been simplified to make them easier for the age of the reader, I was left wondering where important characters where. For example, you cannot have Hamlet without Ophelia. I also felt my heart sink at the adaptation of some of his most famous scenes that left me bereft for the actual quotes or at least for it to resemble more closely to Shakespeare's original work - the Rose scene in Romeo and Juliet stood out to me.

I truly wanted to love this, and to say to people go get it and open the door for your children to Shakespeare, you won't be disappointed.

But you will with this sadly, there are far better adaptations out there that will give you the foundation blocks of Shakespeare's plays.

I love me some Shakespeare. The pandemic brought one awesome thing - The Stratford Festival put their shows online and I got to watch a bunch of them! I loved reading Shakespeare, I loved attending the plays... Ah, classic literature. So it's natural for me to grab this book! A short but sweet collection of Shakespeare's plays in a summarized form. Plus, some nice illustrations to boot!

All of these stories are quirky. I've read a fair amount of them (a few I haven't... yet!), but I still think they were quite fun and made me smile. Those were the quick notes I needed back in high school to help my essay writing!

Overall, this is a great collection to summarize William Shakespeare's stories.

Three out of five stars.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me a free copy of this book in exchange of an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Arcturus Editions for an ARC of this book.

Samantha Newman has chosen some of Shakespeare’s most beloved works and rewritten them to make them more accessible to children. And it works. She made the stories short, simple and easy to understand.

This is a great way to make people fall in love with Shakespeare from a young age, and proves that even though the language Shakespeare used can be difficult to understand at first, his stories are timeless and for everyone to read and love.

I am struggling to review this one. As an adult I enjoyed reading these stories as a reminder/summary of the play's I read in school and college.

However, I think it's quite tough to adapt these stories for children. Shakespeare's stories tend to contain a lot of violence, adultery, and themes unsuitable for children, Toning down these themes and removing the Shakespearean language, leaves the stories lacking. I don't believe I would be able to handsell this title, but if it gets a lot of media coverage it will sell and then I would buy it in for the store I work in.

On another note, I LOVE the book cover!

Thank you Arcturus Publishing and NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Shakespeare's stories by Samantha Newman 5 stars
I absolutely loved this book. I got it to read to my daughter 9 and for her to help me review it. She loved it from the very first story. She kept asking me every night to read more and more she was excited to go to bed.
The book was amazingly wrote into simple understandable stories. I even loved the tales and wish there were other books like this one wrote for adults, as I was put off Shakespeare by my high school. However if children start on this book they will look forwards to reading them again at high school in even more detail. I would even go so far as saying this book should be a compulsory read in junior school. The illustrations are brilliant and just enough detail for middle school readers, who are moving more into using their imagination more. So much praise to the author and publishers for producing such a delightful book that will be enjoyed by many. Ps schools/ parents you won't regret buying this book.
Also posted my review at all booksellers I know including waterstones, amazon, kobo etc

A great addition to add to a child's classic library.

This is a very simplified and good collection of Shakespeare's acclaimed stories. Personally I would have liked more depth to the stories, but it is a great introduction to the world of Shakespeare for children, and covers the basic plot.

The plays are captured in brief chapters, accompanied by many charming illustrations (which were particularly my favourite part of the whole book) It's admirable seeing writers bring new simplified versions to children of the greatest literature classics. Target audience recommendation 7-11 years.

A wonderful way for kids to appreciate the writing genius of William Shakespeare.

I received a gifted copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review via netgalley and Arcturus Publishing.

Shakespeare's Stories is a beautifully illustrated children's book about the classic shakespearean plays but adapted for younger readers.
I must say I loved this book. Not only were the plays easy to understand but they are also very appealing to a child's humour in the way they've been written.
I thoroughly enjoyed each and every one of these shortened, child friendly stories and can't wait to share it with my 8 year old!

A nice adaptation of the most well-known Shakespeare stories for a younger audience. I love the illustrations - could have done with a little more of those. Of couse it's difficult to adapt these stories without losing the feel of them. The original language will no doubt be too difficult for young readers. But I think this book succeeded in telling the tales so that the reader will hopefully have the enthusiasm and knowledge to enjoy the originals when they are older.

Thank you for my advanced copy of this wonderful book. Shakespeare’s Stories have made the works of Shakespeare accessible to the youth of today. The illustrations are a nice touch and the text is appropriate.

I absolutely, positively loved this book. From the get-go, the cover is amazing. Absolutely would be enticed to pick this up whether at the book store or library. Looking further, one can see the contents of the book are also entertaining and accessible. It is well known that Shakespeare is "one of those things." You either love it or you don't... maybe you just don't care, or you don't "get it." Bringing some of that content into the current age is always a hit or miss situation. From what I decided from this book, I think the author did a great job. I am not familiar with all of the original forms of the stories so I can't speak on the accuracies or the quality of the content in that regard, but what I can say is that I would suggest this to others.

Wonderful little bite site intro stories to Shakespeare perfect for younger children or adults who want to jump into some of Shakespeares work