Hamlet for a 9 year old.

[Megsdaughter]

DGD is obsessed with the Taylor Swift Song Opheilia, and wants to read Hamlet.

She knows the basic story, but now wants a book.

She read Harry Potter to herself at 6, so reads very well but im not sure she would be able to understand straight Shakesphere.

Is there a childs version? Ive Googled but the only ones Ive seen seem to young.

Do i buy a 'young' one and an origional si sge can compare?

You’re being dramatic! Her grandaughter has asked to read Hamlet. She will either like it or not. If she doesn’t like it, it doesn’t mean she will never like Shakespeare for the rest of her life!

But Shakespeare isn't meant to be read, at least not as the first point of entry; it's meant to be seen on-stage. These are texts for performance. So many kids have been put off Shakespeare for life because their only experience of his work was as text they had to read from in school, instead of experiencing it being brought alive on-stage. Handing a 9 year old a copy of Hamlet to read might put them off it for a long time; taking them to see a performance of Hamlet is far more likely to spark a lifelong interest!

Here are some pictures from the Leon Garfield retelling, to help you judge if it would be suitable - they may take a bit of time to show up! The whole story is about 30 pages - so it’s not a quick “ladybird tales” but it’s going to be quite a bit more accessible than giving her the playscript. Some lovely Michael Foreman illustrations interspersed throughout too.

Hamlet is a play, not a novel - so it's meant to be seen performed first and foremost. Handing a 9 year old a copy of Hamlet to read may well put them off Shakespeare for life (because it is very difficult to read, even for some adults); far better to take them to see a performance, or even watch a filmed one, so they get a sense of how it was intended to be experienced.

But Shakespeare wrote plays. They were not meant to be read, they were meant to be watched. Dickens is meant to be read (although there are obviously films and musical around some of his books).

At my school we read the Shakespeare play first and then we would have a school trip to Stratford to watch the play. Reading it first never put me off Shakespeare.

Sounds great. There aren’t many schools doing this with nine year olds though. And reading the play in your class with the teacher helping the class to understand what’s going on and appreciate the language isn’t the same as “give it to a nine year old to read by themselves”.

At my teens’ school, they watch the play first, then read it. Then watch it again. I’ve usually preferred it that way round myself. And when I was nine, much as I loved reading and much as I loved reading and watching Shakespeare later on, I wouldn’t have got much out of reading the play without knowing the story a bit better first, and without some help. I did read quite a lot of Shakespeare plays as an older child, not just the ones we did in school. But when I looked at them when I was younger they were hard to follow.

Jeanette Vigon does a version for kids.

So do family homes not have a two volume Complete Works on their shelves now? Do children have to wait until it’s a school subject before they can access Shakespeare? Or have to become the topic of a MN thread - rather than just picking up a volume of plays and taking a look for themselves?

Yes, of course the plays were written to be performed; but they’re rather splendid to read, too - and there’s no reason at all why a curious child should be scarred for life by encountering them at a time of their own choosing. Finding something challenging isn’t fatal.

Give her Lamb’s tales, and the play. And book seats for a stage production.

Yes but it’s not just the language, Hamlet is a play not a novel. Therefore the act of “reading” requires a much greater effort of imagination to visualise the action, the different characters interacting on the stage, and crucially how the dialogue sounds as spoken word as opposed to appears on the page.

Hamlet is a play not a novel. But it is still can be a very enjoyable fascinating story for little kids to read before they read the original play.