Illustrated Stories from Shakespeare

"I would probably tell them to read the Usborne Illustrated Stories from Shakespeare . It is quite straightforward and not confusing and probably the easiest book to get your head round on my list. The pictures are very vivid and it is very easy to tell what is going on. What I really like is how it’s written in normal English but then also has the lines that Shakespeare wrote, in older English, with a line leading to a picture of the person who is saying it. For example, Viola in Twelfth Night says, “Oh, you must untangle this, not I, It is too hard a knot for me to untie” above a picture of her dressed as a boy. As well as Twelfth Night , the other stories in the book are Romeo and Juliet , The Tempest , A Midsummer Night’s Dream , Macbeth and Hamlet . There’s also a section about “The Life and Times of William Shakespeare”, though I haven’t read that (I’m only interested in the stories)."