They give not only the story, but a wonderful sense of the theatrical - you read and enjoy a visual sensation as well as the speech of Shakespeare (all the words 'spoken' are taken directly from Shakespeare's scripts).
Romeo and Juliet, for example, sweats in the heat of Verona. There is a fantastic image of wasps fighting! You go directly into the story - and moral considerations are there.
The pictures support the text well- giving yet another dimension to the book.
Forget Lamb!
I've used these stories in the classroom for many years now - partly because young people (11 through to much older!) relate to them -but also because I really enjoy re-reading them.
(There is a whole set of Abridged Shakspeare by Garfield too - and wonderful Animations done with Russian animators!)
