Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet: A Graphic Novel (Classics in Graphics)
£13.30£14.20 (-6%)
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet like you’ve never seen it – or read it – before!
Classics in Graphics: Romeo and Juliet has been adapted into a graphic novel by expert authors, Steve Skidmore and Steve Barlow, with illustrations by Wendy Tan Shiau Wei. The epic, tragic love story reads like your favourite film on the page – as Death stubbornly hovers over the heads of our star-crossed lovers.
Classics in Graphics is a series of graphic novels for children aged 10 plus that has inclusion at its heart, flinging wide the doors of literature for everyone to enter and understand. Including dyslexia-friendly design on every page, and encouraging readers to relate to these iconic roles – casting spells, falling in love and winning duels.
Each graphic novel includes pitch-perfect illustrations for presenting the tragic, the romantic, the comedic, the magical, as well as:
– snappy simplified text presenting Shakespeare’s themes clearly
– introductory materials to help set the scene and context of each story
– heaps of extra material at the back to keep the learning and fun going, including an exploration of themes in the play, the language, Shakespeare’s inspirations, the publication and performance of the play in history, a timeline of Shakespeare’s life and works, and much more!
Plays available in the series include:
Macbeth
The Tempest
Hamlet
Romeo and Juliet
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Much Ado About Nothing
Praise for the Classics in Graphics series:
“Excellent production and binding, quality paper, and with fantastic writing and illustrations – an encouraging entry point to Shakespeare for my kids, and ease of dive-in for my own flighting or cursory storytelling engagement/whimsy […] an excellent job converting challenging language and literary themes to make it very inclusive, smoothing ease of understanding dialogue, plot, and narration without dumbing it down. Each book has a wonderful appendix including notes on Shakespeare, relevant maps and themes (i.e. for example in Hamlet it goes deeper into its themes of Revenge, Madness & Mortality), and a glossary. For a graphic novel adaptation, I think these books are delightful. […] They are wonderful and have quickly broken down the wall of “fear of Shakespeare” in my house as they are so easy to read and engage. And they have a really nice tactile production value, heft, and readability that makes broaching these often deemed difficult works, FUN. And of course, they are nice to look at.” – EricWilliamson, www.leagueofcomicgeeks.com
Read more
Additional information
| Publisher | Franklin Watts (11 Aug. 2022) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Hardcover | 112 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 1445180065 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1445180069 |
| Reading age | 12 – 14 years |
| Dimensions | 17.8 x 1.4 x 24.8 cm |
by Micky – bookphenomena
This graphic novel edition of Romeo and Juliet is a reasonably in-depth take on the play but converted into an engaging and fun graphic novel.
The art style is appealing and the prose is interesting.
It was a reasonably quick read and I think it’s a good intro to the tale.
by D Smith
They have edited the story appropriately and it has great illustration.
by Paul Leckenby
This Romeo and Juliet graphic novel is an excellent way to get younger readers into Shakespeare. The art style isn’t particularly to my liking but it’s clear and helps visualisation.
There’s notes before the play starts to introduce characters and setting.
I see there’s others in this series and wouldn’t hesitate picking them up.
by D Smith
This is such a great way to introduce younger readers to Shakespeare. The authors have done an excellent adaptation job – making the text accessible and with lots of vivid illustrations, but at the same time retaining Shakespeare’s language and the overall arc of the tale.
There are of course some compromises – the story is thinned out a little, and occasionally the narrative makes some big jumps as a result. But it’s a small price to pay.
by Iota
A different take on a classic and excellent drawings.
by J. R. Atkinson
What a fantastic way to introduce Shakespeare to kids. Gives the core story to elicit interest, with much dialogue retained. Takes away the perceived difficulty of studying the Bard. Illustrations are magnificent.
Teachers could start with the graphic novel to break boundaries then move on to text for learning.
Parents could buy this for their teenager. Makes the play more accessible.
by Iota
This really nice hardcover book measures 18cm wide by 25.1cm tall, and is 1.4cm thick. It has 112 pages in total. The paper stock used is of good quality, with a glossy finish to the pages.
The style of Wendy Tan Shiau We’s colourful artwork is more akin to modern film animation than traditional comic book styles, which should make it more accessible to students who have grown up with such movies.
Whilst the setting is still the same, Steve Skidmore and Steve Barlow have done a good job of modernising and simplifying the language used, whilst still keeping all the main beats and themes of the story. As a result, this book gives students (as well as non-students) a good introduction to Shakespeare’s work, and provides an accessible platform from which they can then go on to read and explore the original text.
As well as the story itself, this book contains extra information and analysis to better understand both the story, and the origins and purpose of the play. Written in a clear, easy to understand manner, this extra information includes sections on:
– William Shakespeare himself.
– About the play itself.
– Breaking down the story telling that’s told through the different Acts.
– Inspirations behind the story.
– The themes found in Romeo and Juliet.
– The language of Shakespeare.
– Fun Facts.
– Publication of the play.
– Performing the play.
– The original theatres.
– Glossary.
– Shakespeare’s Timeline.
In conclusion, this is a really well written and illustrated graphic novel version of Romeo and Juliet. which also includes a variety of informative information. Whilst the stated age for this book of 9-14 years old is right, that doesn’t mean that more advanced younger readers, or older readers won’t also be able to get a lot from this book. I highly recommend it, not only as a book in it’s own right, but also as a gateway to reading and better understand the original play.
~ Amazon asked me to review this product and to give my honest opinion about it. That’s what I have set out to do, so I hope you found it helpful. ~
by J Hobson
As someone who hated Shakespeare at school I really enjoyed this graphic novel version of Romeo and Juliet. The illustrations are great and the story was an enjoyable read.