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Beowulf for the younger crowd? Any "starter" versions worth suggesting?


battlemaiden
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my 6yo and 10yo are enjoying a comic-book-type of version:

by Paul Storrie and Ron Randall.

 

I'm not a comic-kinda gal, but it does pull from a few of the usual versions [Raffel, Donaldson, Serrailler], glossary & pronunciation guide, index, further reading and websites, map, and an attempt at accurate Anglo-Saxon ilustration :-)

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Check out the Wishbone series. That's what I did and my 7 year old LOVED it! It's called Be A Wolf.

 

Here's a link I just found that actually includes some of the text:

http://www.wwwishbone.com/html/books/adven1Chap1.asp

 

check your library. Mine actually has some of the books AND some of the videos. I let my ds watch one of the videos before giving him one of the books just so he would understand how it worked (going back and forth between real life and the dogs imagination in the book).

 

hth

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Thanks.

 

Jo

 

 

Hwaet! (/hwat/: Hark! or Listen! or even Ahem!)

 

Unless your "young crowd" is really young, don't be afraid of diving into this one; it really isn't that long. I started with the unabridged Frederick Rebsamen version when my oldest was in 2nd grade. It has a short introduction of the setting and characters and some explanatory comment interspersed in the poem. Since then, I've added Seamus Heaney's and R. M. Liuzza's versions. Mr. Heaney read most of his translation on the BBC and it is wonderful to listen to (note that it is generally listed as an "unabridged" recording, but his reading was actually moderately abridged).

 

There are *tons* of Beowulf resources on the internet. I just noticed the Wiki entry which has a nice overview and some help with pronunciation (although I'm still searching for a one-to-one phonetic guide of all the names so that you wouldn't have to puzzle each one out). This poem is meant to be *heard*, so definitely read it aloud. Get into it, but don't get bogged down trying to understand everything that is going on. Enjoy it with root beer in the mead hall over several lunches!

 

I posted on another group as to whether there is a list with the pronunciations for each of the names. According to the group's resident Beowulf scholar (he translated it for fun):

 

Stanley Greenfield's "A Readable Beowulf: The Old English Epic Newly

 

Translated" has a tolerably complete Glossary of Proper Names with indicated

 

pronunciations (although Greenfield does indicate that in some cases he modernized

 

the pronunciation for the modern ear).

 

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Thank you for your reply. My 7-year old has expressed an interest in Beowulf, and I too prefer that an adaptation have some of the core flavor of the original. I am thinking about scheduling it as a read aloud for next year. Would this adaption be okay for a then 5-year old as well (I would not consider him a "sensitive" 5)?

 

Thanks,

Krista

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