SHAKESPEARE’S ROMEO AND JULIET

Shakespeare fangeek Rosen has done the nearly impossible: produced an edited and elided version of the play both accessible and thrilling. He’s aided in this by Ray’s beautifully sumptuous watercolors. Rosen sets the stage and propels the story with his narrative descriptions linking Shakespeare’s own words (cited by act and scene). He glosses unfamiliar vocabulary next to the running text, and at the end sends readers forth with the desire to see the play themselves. The key elements—political and familial rivalry; young and passionate love; missed and seized opportunity—are noted enough to illuminate their eternal verity, but not so much as to be hammered at. Ray’s colors are rich, her line delicate, and her figures ripe and sensuous in magnificent counterpoint to the text. She borders each page spread with silken pattern, enclosing them like a stage set. She uses detail brilliantly: Juliet and Romeo look like creatures of Faerie with their hair in tendrils and their tender features; she employs vignettes of hands, flowers, and stars for emphasis. Students and teachers have been waiting for this one. (Nonfiction. 12+)