Reading Shakespeare's Twelfth Night with Kids
It's actually really fun!
In just under a month, I’m launching a Shakespeare Club for Upper Elementary, Middle School, and High School youth. I was always intimidated by Shakespeare until my book club tackled Romeo & Juliet last year and we all took our kids to see the play.
I didn’t begin reading Shakespeare until high school. Even then I only read it because I had to, and I didn’t enjoy it (or understand it.) I want something different for my own kids and am having so much fun discovering the joy of Shakespeare alongside them.
Reading Shakespeare can be daunting, but there are great options out there for getting started with Shakespeare. Heck, these are good even if you don’t have kids but want more enjoyment from Shakespeare. Here are some of my favorite resources:
When introducing Shakespeare for the first time, I found it really helpful to read a book about Shakespeare in general before diving into the poetry & stories he wrote. If your kids (or you) don’t know anything about Shakespeare, William Shakespeare & The Globe is a fantastic picture book biography.
Bruce Coville has an entire series of Shakespeare picture books. They use the original language to tell the story, so it's a great way to introduce Shakespearean English. The artwork is gorgeous as well, so it makes for a great cozy read by the fire. Sometimes libraries will have them, or you can find a used copy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream here.
A Stage Full of Shakespeare has a bunch of stories in narrative form. I picked this up at Costco on a whim last year and the girls adore it.
Tales from Shakespeare by Tina Packer is another beautiful compilation book of stories. I learned about this one through our A Gentle Feast curriculum. The girls love the artwork and the way the stories are written..
Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare by Edith Nesbit is also a compilation, with language that is somewhere between modern and Shakespearean. Nesbit wrote several other favorite children’s books, including Five Children and It, The Enchanted Castle, and The Railway Children.
If you want to read Romeo & Juliet in play form, but want a modern version, No Fear Shakespeare is a great way to begin. It has Shakespeare’s original side by side with a modern translation.
My favorite way to read Shakespeare with my kids is to listen to the audiobook while silently reading along. We use the Folger Shakespeare Library edition because it includes the original language, as well as notes and definitions of terms that are unfamiliar today. I also love that the plays are available for free online (but the online version doesn’t include the notes and definitions).
If your kids get all about Shakespeare and want to read more on their own, my oldest loved The Shakespeare Stealer. It has more to do with Hamlet than Twelfth Night, but it’s a very fun novel about what life might have been like when Shakespeare (and his actors) were alive.
And also, this podcast from Sarah Mackenzie is really great (and not just for homeschoolers!) She makes reading Shakespeare sound so much fun!
Want more Shakespeare with Kids? Try Romeo & Juliet.