"How to introduce kids to Shakespeare--not just to the stories behind the plays but to the richness of his language and the depth of his characters. That's the challenge that Leon Garfield, a wonderful children's book writer, undertook to meet in his monumental and delightful Shakespeare Stories. Here are twenty-one of the Bard's plays, presented in what is not a series of dry retellings, but rather a refashioning of the dramas as stories, in a way that remains true to the essential spirit of the original versions. Garfield has captured all the richness of character, plot, mood, and setting in Shakespeare's works without resorting to simplification. Indeed, he deliberately retains much of Shakespeare's language, skillfully weaving it into his own prose so that the reader is introduced to the flavor of the verse, as well as to the incidents of plot and the spectacle of the drama. Leon Garfield's Shakespeare Stories is an essential distillation--a celebration and a reminder of Shakespeare's genius as a poet and dramatist"--