Review by Booklist Review
Gr. 3^-6. This time cartoonist Williams brings her typically good-humored, graphic-novel-style art to tales created for Victorian periodical audiences. As she did with her books on Greek mythology, the Homeric tradition, and Shakespeare's stories, she combines rambunctiously depicted characters with off-panel period detail and spirited commentary. Here, Dickens' own words come from the characters' mouths as she offers compressed retellings of Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, and A Christmas Carol. Furnishing, clothing, and landscape details are accurate to the times, and the color choices vary appropriately to suit everything from candlelit interiors and debtors' prisons to the bright celebrations. This recap of classics is best for an audience already familiar with Dickens' stories, whether having heard them read aloud or seen the movie versions. The book may also inspire nascent cartoonists and illustrators. A fresh retelling that makes a good story as well as an introduction to classroom reading assignments or school dramatizations --Francisca Goldsmith
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
With her usual engaging approach, Marcia Williams tackles the works of Charles Dickens (as she has Homer, Shakespeare and others in the past) in Charles Dickens and Friends. A handful of Victorian classics-Oliver Twist; Great Expectations; A Tale of Two Cities; David Copperfield; and A Christmas Carol-unfold in sepia-toned cartoon panels with a pacing that plays up Oliver's plea for "More," the storming of the Bastille, and Marley's ghostly appearance to Scrooge. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 3-6-Somewhere between "Classic Comics" (Smithmark) and graphic novels lies this collection of Dickens's works, drastically abridged and presented in large comic-strip format, combining adapted text below cartoon drawings. Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, and A Christmas Carol are distilled into 6- to 10-page stories that include the bare rudiments of each plot and droll illustrations featuring dialogue taken directly from the original works, spilling out of the frames into the margins with additional witty commentary. Condensing long novels into so few pages requires judicious use of words, and Williams rises to the challenge, providing the salient events in a reasonably smooth narrative flow. Nevertheless, Dickens's masterful storytelling is lost and thus there is a greater dependence on the pictures to make the stories interesting and fun. The framed, whimsical art, which varies widely in palette, size, and tone, corresponding with theme and action, is augmented with banner heads taken from chapter titles. Readers will, of course, be familiar with A Christmas Carol and, perhaps, Oliver Twist, and will likely enjoy revisiting them and poring over the details of the illustrations, although the meaning of some of the captions will undoubtedly elude them. An interesting, if barely adequate, introduction to these classics.-Marie Orlando, Suffolk Cooperative Library System, Bellport, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Employing a comic-strip format, Williams distills five Dickens classics--[cf2]Oliver Twist[cf1], [cf2]Great Expectations[cf1], [cf2]A Tale of Two Cities[cf1], [cf2]David Copperfield[cf1], and [cf2]A Christmas Carol[cf1]--with spirit and verve. Her smooth, lighthearted retellings run beneath wittily drawn picture panels that incorporate dialogue from the original books. From HORN BOOK Spring 2003, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
With small, teeming cartoon scenes so boisterous that they frequently burst their borders, Williams (Bravo, Mr. William Shakespeare!, 2000, etc.) catapults readers headlong through five of Dickens's best-known melodramas, introducing an array of curly-haired naifs, roundly vivacious young women, and pasty-faced villains, as well as those distinctively colorful supporting casts of orphans, convicts, ne'er-do-wells, widows, pickpockets, ghosts, and more--all of whom speak in snatches of Dickens's own dialogue. Taking each tale's original narrative voice, Williams fills in the gaps with necessarily substantial captions, and for additional atmosphere adds borders of dingy London rooftops, or groups of gnomes and other small creatures observing the action from the margins. Williams's figures may be tiny, but their personalities are distinctly larger than life; just as Oliver Twist, Bill Sikes, icky Uriah Heep, Scrooge, Miss Havisham, and the rest came alive for Dickens, so will they come alive for readers years (or decades) away from tackling the full length originals. Pair this with Diane Stanley's Charles Dickens: The Man Who Had Great Expectations (1993) to lay far, far better groundwork for a later appreciation of some timeless classics than filmed versions, or more conventional abridgements, ever could. (Picture book. 8-10)
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
