Reimagining Shakespeare for Children and Young Adults

by Naomi J. Miller (Editor)

This is a collection of original essays about how Shakespeare and how his plays are increasingly being used as a means of furthering literacy, language arts, creative and dramatic learning for children in and out of the classroom. It is divided into three sections comprising essays by well-known children's book authors, literary scholars, and teachers, respectively, who approach the subject from a wide range of perspectives.

Genres: Shakespeare

344 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Mariel]

Celebrity Death Match tournament versus Jane Eyre.
Scene. The gothic-lite and forbidden part of Thornfield Hall. The first place visitors are told that they absolutely must abstain from stepping foot near, around or in. It's a good place to stash booze or have secret meetings without being overheard.
Hamlet is already there. Enter Grace Poole and her two mysterious boyfriends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Hamlet: If you do this right there's a pizza party and a better position in it for you. You can watch over me and my dead Ophelia, rather than the cesspool of venarial diseases that is the first Mrs. Rochestor's putrid vagina. That's not where this is? This smuggler's cave of yours?
Grace Poole: (Repulsed look to Hamlet. That's the OTHER untouched corridor of Thornfield.) I know what it is in it for me - I like Chuck E. Cheese, by the way. I'm tired of going to chick lit movies and being used as an excuse for a ride along. "Grace is making me go see this Kate Hudson vehicle... It's not me, you understand, for my tastes are high brow." I will have my day! What I don't understand is what is in it for you, mi-lord?" She arches a brow to demonstrate that she, too, is high brow.
Hamlet: What does Mr. Rochestor have that I don't have? Brooding? Check. Status, position, a foul temper and seeming changeability. Check mate. I should win this Celebrity Death Match!"
A look passes between them that Grace understands that Hamlet wants Jane Eyre to pine for him. He wants to deliver another crushing set down.
Hamlet: Don't mess this up or it is America's Sweetheart for the rest of your days! Keira Knightley will play Jane and Colin Farrell will be Mr. Rochestor. True love wills out! Does anyone want that?
Enter a drawing room of overly made up match making mamas and their hangers-on. Applebees happy hour is over and Mr. Rochestor's place is the natural choice for an after party. Grace Poole passes around a tray of martinis and fish tacos. Blanche Ingram eats them all and is seen to gesture that it is hard to find good snacks these days. Grace Poole looks determined.
Blanche Ingram: Since there is nothing else to do we shall have to find another way to amuse us. I know! Let us play charades. The Trivial Pursuit game is still missing the note cards after Sherlock Holmes was here last.
Jane looks repulsed from the suggestion and the smell of the fish tacos. Mr. Rochestor looks resolved.
Mr. Rochestor and Blanche Ingram dry hump on the piano bench.
Rosencrantz: Dirty Dancing!
Guildenstern: A Tori Amos concert!
Jane Eyre knows before Blanche gets impatient and shouts out the answer.
Blanche: What a governess should expect from an affair with her betrothed employer!
Jane's reaction is to run out of the room in tears. Mr. Rochestor knows that she cares. He makes a move to follow her but a well timed foot from Grace Poole sends him flying to the floor. Grace proffers a hidden tray of fish tacos to distract the rest of the party.
Hamlet knows that it is time to cut the blade deeper.
Hamlet: Get thee to my house! It has real ghosts and not fake ones like this lame excuse for a supernatural mystery. Brood for me. You will understand not what I say or do for I am as changeable as the next movie adaptation from the BBC. Consider me your Jacob Black, your Edward Cullen and all stand-in Byronic love interests. Everyone loves a love triangle these days. The party never has to end for I will never love you. What did John Travolta say in Swordfish? Masturbation without the payoff... (And I WILL judge you.)
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern win their gentle Grace Poole a stuffed teddy bear bigger than her.
Win: Hamlet

[Candy Wood]

Having 32 chapters by different contributors means no writer is able to develop his or her topic in any depth. Besides, the breadth of the overall topic means that any one reader is unlikely to find all of the essays interesting. For some, the first section, with its short pieces by authors and illustrators who have produced Shakespeare-related fiction and nonfiction for young readers, might be most valuable. The second is less coherent as a section but has some thought-provoking discussions, especially Mark Lawhorn on children in the plays and Douglas King on the supernatural in illustrated editions. The third section, on pedagogy, is full of optimism on ways to make the plays interesting at all levels from preschool to university. Only one contributor, Howard Marchitello, even raises the question of whether, and why, doing that is desirable in 21st-century America. Still, the volume should provide encouragement to teachers who want their students to learn to think critically, not necessarily to love Shakespeare.