This is a fun quick recap of Macbeth. ( )

I have just got through reading this to my eight-year old as a bedtime story - In truth Macbeth's plot is probably a bit grim to guarantee sweet dreams, but nonetheless the brief novelisations of the Shakespeare Stories series are terrific. It's about a twenty minute read so is perfectly feasible to get through in a single sitting, and is expertly paced, elegantly written, the dialogue has a pleasingly scottish air, and it succeeds very well in accentuating the major dramatic and figurative themes of the play, and includes a couple of pages of summary and context at the end. So much so that it's really not a bad encapsulation of the story for any reader without the inclination to wade through the bard's own iambic pentameter.

Our youngster was riveted throughout. It is typeset in nice big text and there are (Quentin) Blake-esque pen and ink illustrations dotted liberally thoughout, so this would be a pretty good self-reader too, for the eight to twelve bracket.