Jane Eyre

[PeaceLoveAndCandy]

DD needs to read this book for school and she's struggling with the tiny handwriting, language and lack of paragraphs. I'm just wondering if there's a version that will make it more palatable (besides the movie of course!). TIA.

Do you/does she have a Kindle?

Font size and spacing/paragraphs are better here

Or buy a different edition?

Various to choose from here

Ah I had this problem so switched to the audio book ! This was for my a-level… so can confirm that listening is just as good as reading lol

No kindle I'm afraid.
Thanks @BIWI but that's precisely it, how do I know which version is going to be more readable without buying them all? Would love recommendations.

Best thing would be to go to a good bookshop I think!

On Amazon you can 'look inside' the books, and this version looks OK

It is available for free on archive.org. you can then download it in any palatable form, raw text, pdf etc, which can then be expanded to be much larger text.

Aside from finding a version with larger text, try some supporting material for her to get her head round?

The BBC drama with Toby Stephens (swoon) and Ruth Wilson is brilliant.

And Spark Notes is really useful for chapter summaries, themes, character descriptions etc - www.sparknotes.com/lit/janeeyre/

Large print (size 16 font) here

www.amazon.co.uk/Jane-Eyre-Large-Charlotte-Bronte/dp/1494303434

It's available on BBC sounds as an audiobook in episodes. It's not a full cast thing just read by a narrator.

No kindle I'm afraid

There is a kindle app for lots of devices. I read in my phone or iPad.

Oh, I hope you find a version that she gets along with and that she falls in love with the book. It's my no1 favourite novel ever.
I read it loads as a young teen and was thrilled that it was on my o level syllabus.

I'm desperate for my DD to enjoy it.

How old is she? DS has just finished Y7 and this year he has had to read The Importance of Being Earnest, Hardy's Woodlanders and Pride and Prejudice, none of which has been particularly palatable/ accessible for an 11yo boy.

We've come up with a routine that sort of works for the pre-reading: watch the film/ dramatisation to get the gist, then read the chapter/section summary before reading the actual chapter/ section. Read character analysis as new characters show up. He makes some very brief notes on each chapter in a notebook he has on purpose.

That seems to have been enough to then allow him to keep up in class.

If you buy a kindle version then you can download free samples in advance. You can also adjust the text size and paragraph alignment for any ebook copy.

Be careful with the cheaper versions though, IME they're much more likely to contain transcription errors.

For study, physical hard copies are much better as it allows students to annotate the pages and IMO it's still much easier to do this the old fashioned way than on a screen. Doing it by hand on paper also helps the brain to learn and memorise more easily than a screen based text.

Definitely go to your nearest bookshop to check out physical copies. Additional benefit is that you should be able to pick up an edition specifically for students so will be published in an easy to read format and with notes to aid understanding. Waterstones is the best place to pick up such copies these days, or you can try Foyles if you have one nearby.

She's about to go into Y11.@2reefsin30knots that's excellent advice thank you. DD is an outstanding writer but a year of English Literature has made her detest it with a passion and she will no longer pursue it for A levels. It's been quite a shock as it's almost been a given since she was very young, but unfortunately she's performed quite poorly this year and her love of reading and writing is gone. Right now my aim is that she gets through Y11 without hating it even further.