Junior Thespians

My kids have discovered Shakespeare. We've been reading books from the Shakespeare can be Fun series by Lois Burdett. These books are fantastic at introducing the bard to children. They include the more famous lines and keep the adult content to a minimum. In Romeo and Juliet, they do die in the end which shocked my son. I explained that Shakespeare used tragedy to make us think about things. His drawings have since taken on a very macabre element which he excuses as tragedy. I'd better make a note of that on any that make it into the scrapbook.

Then, they watched a little cartoon on Netflix called Romeo and Juliet: Sealed with a Kiss. Okay, this movie is isn't the greatest and everyone lives happily everafter, BUT! They use the proper names of the characters and adhere to the central story line. I'm happy with it considering my three-year-old now knows Juliet was a Capulet and Romeo was a Montague!

They next ran with the whole Romeo and Juliet idea and decided to organize a neighborhood play. My son was to do the scenery and my daughter would handle costumes. My three year old kept lying dramatically over her stuffed animals saying "I'm dead. Just kidding!" All was going well until they came across one tiny problem: my daughter wanted to be Juliet and my son insisted on being Romeo. Ewwww.

Well, there is always the Tempest or Macbeth. I have no fear, they will have moved on to Robin Hood by tomorrow!