So I think I may have mentioned, I went in to my daughter’s preschool class to be a “celebrity reader” a few months ago.  Not wanting to push my luck with the Shakespeare (and not having a version handy that I would consider appropriate), I went with the modern Shakespeare – Dr. Seuss . I was a big hit. Well my oldest daughter is in first grade, and also has a similar “parents feel welcome to come in and read” program which I have studiously avoided.  First graders, for those who aren’t parents, are far wilder than preschoolers.  Much less likely to pay attention, much more likely to say “You stink” or “We hate this book” if they had this book, or, you know, if I stink. But school’s coming to a close and I may not get the chance to do this again, so I break down and tell the teacher I’ll come in this week. BUT!  I have a plan.  I head to Amazon and grab The Tempest : For Kids (Shakespeare Can Be Fun series), even getting the extra shipping to make sure it shows up on time.  This series has a number of things going for it: * written by an elementary school teacher, for her students * written in rhyming verse, ala Dr. Seuss * illustrated by her students, ages 7-8 (which I guess makes them more like second or third graders) Now, I’m getting into it.  I’ve got visions of bringing my now several versions of this story and letting them be passed around the class while I read from this one.  Heck, maybe I’ll even bring my Shakespeare bust and sit him down on the desk with me. But this is where my schemes gangs aft agley.  Book arrives, and it is indeed beautiful.  Brightly illustrated on every page, not just with images but with paraphasings of key passages. But *dense* with text.  This book is over 60 pages long, with 10+ full sentences on each page.  For 6yr olds that is a tremendous amount of information, and there’s no way they can meaningfully follow the story if I attempt to read it in one sitting.  I even tried to time it, and reading quickly – without interruption for questions – it would take me near to half an hour to get through the thing.  Heck, I was on 9 minutes before we even saw Caliban! In short, there’s no way I’m reading this to my daughter’s class.  Even though it’s written by a school teacher I’d now call this the kind of thing she could read to them over multiple sittings, not as one drive-by by a random parent who they won’t see again, Although my daughter and I found a replacement book today (Harold and the Purple Crayon), I haven’t given up hope.  I will either dig up my Usborne version and see if I think it’s good enough to keep their attention (from what I recall there aren’t enough pictures, and still too many words)., or if I have the time and energy if I can actually paraphrase this one down to just a sentence or two per page, so I can keep the pictures and still get the story across in about 10 minutes.

http://obit-mag.com/viewmedia.php/prmMID/6043 There’s actually no Shakespeare in this list.  That is, until the person in the comments mentions Orson Welles in Chimes At Midnight!  That’s a Shakespeare geek right there, let me tell you. But it does bring up the question of doing our own list.  Who in the movies has done the best Shakespearean death scenes?  Gibson’s Hamlet, or Olivier’s?  DiCaprio’s Romeo, or … that other guy’s?

http://www.thefrisky.com/post/246-emile-hirsch-to-remake-hamlet-and-other-teen-genre-shakespearean-classi/ If the news of Emile Hirsch doing Hamlet is interesting to you, then perhaps you might want to go hunt down some of these “teen remakes” of Shakespeare.  Nothing regular readers haven’t seen before, but a nice collection with YouTube snippets from each. I don’t think that Luhrman’s Romeo+Juliet is in the same company as “She’s The Man”,  one being a modern interpretation and the other more of an “inspired by / retelling”.  But that’s getting picky.  I’ve always said, the more interest people show in Shakespeare, the better. Even if it is just to go see the hot young celebrities.

http://myfivebest.com/?p=366 When I saw this was tagged Shakespeare, I assumed that the author would drop in Romeo or Hamlet or somebody. Nope, he’s talking about Shakespeare himself.

http://johndborra.blogspot.com/2009/06/nerditry-hamlet-and-christian.html Not really my thang one way or the other, but the linked blog post discusses over Christian references in Hamlet.  The usual suspects – the ghost’s description of purgatory, Hamlet’s choice not to kill Claudius while he is “fit and season’d for passage”, and so on. Thought I’d post it if anybody’s up for the discussion.  I didn’t really think there was a question about Hamlet being “overtly Christian”, was there?  Now, see, if Claudius had sent Hamlet to Vatican City, that’d be a different topic.