A Stage Full of Shakespeare Stories is a collection of 12 of Shakespeare’s plays rewritten as stories for children in Year 3 and up. Each story begins with a title page with wonderful illustrations depicting some of the characters and important objects featured in the story. There is also a quotation from the original version. This is followed by a list of the main characters in the story and an illustration of each one, which is handy to refer back to when reading the story as it also includes how the characters are related to each other. There are beautiful illustrations throughout each story, some of which are full page spreads.

The stories are faithful to the originals and although rewritten to be accessible to younger children, they do not shy away from using ambitious vocabulary. There is some use of language that children may not be familiar with, such as ‘thee’, but this provides a great opportunity for discussion of how language has changed since the plays were originally written and how some words are still in use. At the back of the book, there is some information about Shakespeare and his life as well as a full list of his plays. There is also some additional information about each of the stories in the book including a brief overview of each one and an idea of where the story came from.

This is a story that depicts one aspect of childhood anxiety in such a gentle way – weaving a variety of themes, including shyness, family and even an introduction to Shakespeare into one tale. The story is engaging and describes a range of emotions in an accessible and intelligent way.

The story centres on Violet, a shy child riddled with self-doubt and confidence issues when she is cast as the main lead in a Shakespeare production. Her family, including her nan and uncles, try to help Violet’s self-esteem. The story has an excellent approach to explaining the physical and emotional feelings related to anxiety, but more importantly, how to overcome them. Eagleton also embraces diversity in Violet’s support network of her family.

Clara Anganuzzi enhances the story with wonderful illustrations that perfectly portray the emotions at play. The illustrations feature intricate details in places, including photographs on the wall in the background of scenes. All these details add to the rich family diversity explored in the story.