Get this, S, my 11 year old boy, who wants to grow up to be a Marine is reading Shakespeare.  On his own.  Because he wants to. Go figure.  I happen to have only two paperbacks of Shakespearean plays.  I have the ubiquitous (aren't you impressed ) Romeo and Juliet and Othello.  He decided this past weekend he wanted to learn about Shakespeare and picked up Romeo and Juliet to read (lots of good fighting scenes).  This seemed to pique ED's interest and she's been reading it on and off as well.  It's inspiring me to pick up Othello which I haven't read yet. 

Now I know the language is tough to wade through and to be honest I don't know if he'll actually read it all the way through but I'm delighted that this was born out of his own interest.  We tried to watch a DVD of Romeo and Juliet today but the DVD was scuffed and it wouldn't work.  I'm going to see if I can scare up another copy.

Maybe this interest has surfaced because when S was about 3 or 4 we watched the movie Much Ado About Nothing.  The girls and I loved this movie and we still enjoy it today when we watch it.  The thing I remember about watching it back then was how he'd pick up a line and repeat it over and over.  He'd say (quoting) at the top of his lungs "YOU ARE AN A**".  I know that sounds bad but in old English that just meant "donkey" or "foolish".  Even children's books out of England like The Chronicles of Narnia and Wind of the Willows contain that word.  But hey, we didn't live in England so we managed to get him to stop saying that particular line. 

I'm glad that S doesn't know that Shakespeare isn't "cool" or that it's "too hard" or it's "boring".  Sometimes I get those panic attacks of "are we doing enough" but today I think we're doing ok.

doulos