Cinnamon re-introduces herself and her girls to Mr. Shakespeare, via E. Nesbit’s Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare.
Also on Mr. Shakespeare, a librarian blurbs a middle school mystery called Shakespeare’s Secret by Elise Broach.
Celebrate Shakespeare’s birthday with my dear cyber-friend MFS of Mental-Vitamin (who was once reprimanded for “dipping into a gilt-edged set of Shakespeare’s complete works. ‘You’ll ruin the pages!’ cried my mother as she swooped in to ‘save’ the books and promptly return them to their purely decorative function as knickknacks on her colonial-style drum table.” Ouch!). MFS has a much more enlightened attitude about books in her post, In the company of books.
A few other Shakespeare book suggestions:
Stage Fright on a Summer’s Night by Mary Pope Osborne. Jack and Annie, via the magic Treehouse, travel back in time to Shakespeare’s England and participate in a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
The Shakespeare Stealer, Shakespeare’s Scribe, and Shakespeare’s Spy by Gary Blackwood. Widge, a boy of unknown parentage, becomes an apprentice at William Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. Or maybe he’s a spy out to steal Mr. Shakespeare’s plays. Partially reviewed here.
Bard of Avon: The Story of William Shakespeare by Diane Stanley. A 48-page biography of Shakespeare with beautiful illustrations.
Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb.
Blood and Judgement by Lars Walker is a take-off on Hamlet (for adults). Reviewed here.
And these two I want to read, so I’m adding them to The List:
The Two Loves of Will Shakespeare by Laurie Lawlor.
Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt.
Fianlly, this week I’m taking a poll:
What is your favorite Shakespeare comedy?
Tragedy?
Movie based on a Shakespearean play?
Quotation from Shakespeare?
I’ll share mine when the voting is over on Saturday. Leave your choices in the comments.
I’m an English major, so I’m excited to share my favorites from Shakespeare!
Comedy: The Merchant of Venice
Tragedy: King Lear
Movie: Henry V with Kenneth Branagh
Quotation: “The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath” –Portia in the Merchant of Venice
Comedy: Comedy of Errors – I’m probably biased because I played Adriana in college.
Tragedy: Macbeth
Movie: Much Ado About Nothing with Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson
Quotation: This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Comedy – A Midsummer Night’s Dream… Guess who I once played? (t’would be easier if you knew me – and knew what I looked like – but give it a guess anyway)
Movie – literal: Much Ado About Nothing w/Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson
Movie – adaptation – 10 Things I Hate About You (from The Taming of the Shrew)
Tragedy – Macbeth
Quote: Things base and vile, holding no quantity
Love can transpose to form and dignity
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind
Therefore is winged Cupid painted blind
Nor hath love’s mind any judgment taste
Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste
Therefore is love said to be a child
Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.
(What can I say – I memorized it in high school and it stuck)
And of course the wonderful
“Lord! What fools these mortals be!”
Gotta have one more…
Oh that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the marketplace! (can’t you just see Emma Thompson? That is my favorite moment of her- ever. I cry every time I see that scene)
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