From School Library Journal:
Grade 5-10–This prose retelling of one of Shakespeare's most popular and frequently taught plays is a good introduction for readers who might not be ready for the original. It is told in short, two- to three-page chapters and is intended for a slightly older audience than Bruce Coville's picture book William Shakespeare's Macbeth (Dial, 1997). McKeown incorporates many of the most significant poetic passages and images from the play into his clearly written, sometimes slangy narrative, and there is also some literary explication. The book includes a short introduction to the play and its history, a section called "Questions People Ask about Macbeth," and a listing of characters. The angular, almost Cubist illustrations are appropriate to the dark subject matter and suggest the tortured states of the Scottish nobleman and his wife. While nothing substitutes for reading the real thing, this retelling would be helpful to students who are attempting to understand the basics.–Kathleen E. Gruver, Burlington County Library, Westampton, NJ
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From Booklist:
Gr. 5-8. As in his Young Readers Shakespeare: Hamlet (2003), McKeown recasts the play into a short novel-like format, adding small amounts of physical detail and internalizing most of the speeches. He preserves many fragments of the more significant lines as dialogue ("Eye of newt and tongue of dog, adder's fork and blind worm's sting . ."), sometimes giving them a contemporary flavor: "I'll tell you what," says Banquo. "If you should be king I promise I won't try to kill ou, if you don't try to kill my children." Illustrated with scenes of pale, flinty-faced figures, opening with a tantalizing introduction, and closing with FAQs (plus an index!), this version will give modern readers a steadier leg up on understanding the play's dark events, twisted characters, and historical context than Lorenz Graham's graphic novel adaptation (1997) or Lois Burdett's entry in the Shakespeare Can Be Fun series (1996). John Peters
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