ROMEO AND JULIET

Jim Weiss has a knack for selecting texts that children are unlikely to read and bringing them alive for young listeners. He takes the words of historical figures and contextualizes their famous speech with lively story. Here, Weiss chooses to tell--in story form-- one of the Bard's most famous tragedies, with interesting results. Clearly he's not a student of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and his mildly English accents are occasionally a little comical. However, this production offers a good introduction to Shakespeare (with Weiss providing interesting background on the writer) and to one of his most famous plays, and both my 7- and 11-year-old daughters listened along intently. J.C.G. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine [Published: JUN/ JUL 06]