Macbeth for a sensitive 8 year old?

[mathnerd]

My 8 year old memorized the Witches' chant from Macbeth and had a blast reciting it at a halloween event. He now wants to read Macbeth and he has been pestering me to get it for him. I would like to know if it is too violent for a sensitive 8 year old? If the original is too scary, are there any sanitized versions of Macbeth for tender young minds? TIA!

[Laura Corin]

Children and their mother are murdered in Macbeth, amongst other people.

 

You might like to look at the BBC's animated version.  I haven't seen it, but it might be possible.  They use the original words but abridged.

[Pen]

My ds loved a local production of Macbeth at around age 7.  They made things like Macbeth's cut off head look obviously fake, and the children and wife etc. murders were off stage.  The witches were not made overly scary, etc.

 

After that we read through the play with me editing as we went, more as I recall for over complexity reasons as because it was too scary.  Then he and a friend re-enacted the Macbeth/Macduff sword fight multiple time taking turns as to who was who, and using berry juice for "blood".  They seemed to both love it.  He tended to be more scared by things that were creepy in a horror genre type way, not so much by something like Macbeth so long as not too graphic in presentation.   And parts like with the ghost of Banquo in Macbeth tend to be funny, not creepy in many versions including the one he saw, and we tried to keep it that way in reading the play.  

 

OTOH, no DVD that we tried of Macbeth was okay for him at a time that he begged to get one to be able to see it again after the live show had ended. He saw the live show at least 4 times, I think, the only Shakespeare that gripped him that much.

 

I think the key is to not read it in a way that emphasizes the scary aspects.

[desertflower]

This is what I have.  http://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Shakespeare-Childrens-Stories-Collection/dp/178226020X/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1446170553&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=the+complete+collection+of+shakespeare+children%27s+storeis 

 

Although, I think I bought it somewhere else.  I know I didn't pay that much for the collection.  The Tragedy of Macbeth is included.  It's an abridged version about 60 pages.  Not gory.  Pictures are appropriate and not in color. 

 

Hth.

[jlee]

There is s brick shakespeare http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/162636303X?keywords=brick%20shakespeare&qid=1446177554&ref_=sr_1_3&sr=8-3

 

My son enjoyed it. Also, he is a big fan of horrible history series. I highly recommend horrible history series. You can watch on amazon(season 1-5). After 5 season, it was great introduction to history. 

Horrible history crew just made a Shakespeare movie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_(2015_film) 

 

 

[EndOfOrdinary]

One benefit of the original language is how much can fly over the heads of kids, or can be completely de-emphasized. Ds begged for Hamlet at around that age. I was really worried. He somehow did not find it scary or gruesome. Ghosts, murders, lots of sexual inuendo. Nope. Totally remembers it as a murder mystery. It was great exposure, and we redid the book again a year or so later. I am sure we will redo it another time before high school is out. As far as I am concerned, great books should be like fairy tales told over and over to kids.

 

We used "Hamlet: A Young Reader's Shakespeare" by Adam Mckeown when we did it again only a year ago. I appears they might have MacBeth version: http://www.amazon.com/Young-Readers-Shakespeare-Macbeth/dp/B0027A3FFS/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1446181147&sr=1-1&keywords=MacBeth+young+readers+edition

[Chrysalis Academy]

I think reading it will be fine, and seeing the play will be fine, but like Pen I have yet to find a movie version that worked for my kids at that age.  I love the Patrick Stewart version, but that would have been nightmare city around here.  The Ian McKellan/Judy Dench Macbeth wasn't too scary or gory, it's more like a stage play, but it didn't really hold their attention at that age.

[Black-eyed Suzan]

We read (actually listened on audiobook) Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare. It includes Macbeth and retains a lot of the original language.

 

Here it is on-line:

http://www.bartleby.com/1012/10.html

[Pen]

I think reading it will be fine, and seeing the play will be fine, but like Pen I have yet to find a movie version that worked for my kids at that age.  I love the Patrick Stewart version, but that would have been nightmare city around here.  The Ian McKellan/Judy Dench Macbeth wasn't too scary or gory, it's more like a stage play, but it didn't really hold their attention at that age.

 

 

Yep. Same here.  Even though Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan are familiar from Star Trek, Hobbit and so on, the versions they were in totally did not work for ds for Macbeth. The McKellan/Dench version bored me too, sad to say.  This reminds me that our library had a version, probably from BBC in similar package to BBC Dickens adaptations,  which looked like it might have been okay, but the disc was damaged so it would not play past first witches scene and I never tried for that again.