FOR children growing up reading sorcery and extraterrestrial thrillers, Shakespeare is not ‘cool.’ His language appears to them laboured, romances silly and tragedies overdone. But Shakespeare also has an evergreen appeal, which cannot be denied to this generation. The compromise would be the simplified abridged stories. And that is what E. Nesbit attempted while writing abridged stories of Shakespeare. Hachette has published a collection ‘Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare.’ Actor Naseeruddin Shah, who does not agree with abridged versions, has written the foreword. He hopes that “something is better than bilkul hi nothing” would work and the children who read this book may get sufficiently curious about the bard.
Edith Nesbit (1858-1924) wrote and collaborated on over 60 books for children. In this volume, 20 of Shakespeare’s works have been included. To help young readers, a section on pronouncing vocabulary of names, written by Edith has been added, plus select quotations from Shakespeare.
The innovative cover of the volume is printed both sides, with the inside cover giving the picture of the theatre, highlighting the innovations done for various plays.
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