Customer Reviews

A Midsummer Night's Dream for Kids (Shakespeare Can Be Fun!)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I love the works of Shakespeare but I've always thought that children under the age of 11 or 12 wouldn't be able to grasp the complexity both of the stories and of the language. Well, thank goodness Lois Burdett has come to our rescue! It has been her labor of love to rewrite the stories in rhyming couplet. She is quite an accomplished poet and a delight to read.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is extremely funny. Throughout the book Ms Burdett has included pictures and statements relating to the story that were made by her students. Clearly she makes Shakespeare come alive. I was so impressed with her rendition of this story that I couldn't wait to try it out on my eight year old. He loved it! We have a new Shakespeare fan in our house. I am extremely grateful that these books are available. I plan to purchase them all.

Great rhyme. Great Read-aloud. The artwork by kids, is kid-friendly, as is the prose. This book gets across the basics of the tale in language that kids can understand. My daughter and I loved it. (She's 10). We enjoyed the little letters that the children wrote -- chuckling over the misspellings. And she enjoyed the mischievous pranks of Puck and lovers' woes. And me... I enjoyed introducing Shakespeare's stories to her.

Highly recommend.

Pam T~
mom

My husband and I are huge Shakespeare fans and this is the perfect way to share our love with our child.

This book was great. I was unsure of how to introduce my children to Shakespeare. These books are the key. Midsummer Night's Dream is such a funny story. Well done.

My daughters (7 and 10 years old) read this book before for seeing the NYC Ballet production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream". They loved the book, and found it easy to understand what was happening in the ballet performance.

This book was well advertised with example pages included. The book did not diaappoint my young Hawaiian students or myself. The student illustrations in the book were really spot on. The length of the story was also appropriate.

Second graders have written the explanatory notes and illustrated this Shakespeare adaption (with the text done in well adapted iambic pentameter). The system makes Shakespeare fun for kids such as the elementary kids I used it with. But it also gives good literary value. I have enjoyed reading the series myself. jj

Often times, by the time a kid is old enough to tackle Shakespeare (in high school usually) he or she has already been exposed so thoroughly to the idea that "Shakespeare is hard" that it's a drudgery before they even begin. These books help parents and teachers head off that attitude and show them how interesting and fun Shakespeare is before they have a chance to develop a negative attitude.

We have both "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Macbeth" and I have to give a very sincere BRAVO for these books! My third grader enjoyed both books thoroughly, and I am tickled pink that she's now intrigued by Shakespeare and asking to read more of his "stories." Thank you Ms. Burdett!

When I read, "A Midsummer Night's Dream", I thought it was a very happy story. The story takes place in Athens, Greece and the king is about to become engaged to a queen. The story is about love and many magical events. I think "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is an extremely happy and cheerful story and I recommend it to other people.

Retelling Shakespeare's stories is a valid activity. (Shakespeare after all retold others' stories when he wrote his plays.) Telling kids that they're learning Shakespeare when their taught retellings of the stories in his plays, however, is a terrible practice and should be avoided at all costs.