All ye homeschooling mothers, get thee to a bookstore and buy this book.
How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare by Ken Ludwig is simply fantastic! It is clear, succinct, informative, inspiring and joyful. Ken Ludwig is a playwright who has won awards (but I am ignorant and have never heard of him), who loves Shakespeare and know his works well. He also is the father of two children whom he taught to love Shakespeare too. He tells us the simple and wonderful way he did this. He teaches you how to teach memorization, how to recite, read and understand Shakespeare - not in an heavy academic way but still in an intelligent way that makes you feel his sheer amazement at the Bard's genius. He gives you an order in which to introduce the plays and twenty-five passages to memorize over the course of time to really establish a love and depth of knowledge of Shakespeare's works.
I got this book out of the library, but it is so good, I plan to buy it to so I can have my own hard copy. It won't even do to have it on the Kindle because you have to be able to flip easily through the book to different passages from different plays.
Check out his website: www.howtoteachyourchildrenshakespeare.com where you can hear famous actors recite the passages and where he provides you with his quotation sheets, which aid children in memorizing the passages.
This book is truly a gift. Thank you Ken Ludwig for having such a generous heart and for loving both Shakespeare and your kids so much it all overflowed into this lovely gem of a book!
For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.
Wonderful! We are following Ambleside Online for homeschooling, and several works by Shakespeare are part of the curriculum. My daughters have a difficult time connecting with what he's written, so the book you reviewed sounds like an inspiring and workable way to help them understand his writing.
ReplyDelete