A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare. Retold by Robert Swindells
A & C Black, 2009. ISBN 9781408104361
Swindells has taken on a task which would
daunt many people: retelling Shakespeare's stories for a young audience
in the
twenty first century. Using contemporary language, but with a
sprinkling of the
Bard's words still intact, Swindells captures the essence of this funny
play
with ease.
Divided into the same five acts, the story of love and
desire meets
the play within the play, as Oberon, playing a trick on his love,
Titania, has
a potion poured onto her eyelid so that she will love the first person
she sees
on waking. He has the same thing done to Demetrius, in the hope that the first person he sees is Helena,
who
loves him passionately. But his scheme fails, and both Lysander and
Demetrius
spy Helena, and follow her blindly, leaving poor Hermia to wonder where
her
love, Lysander has got to.
In the meantime, Titania has woken and spies
Bottom, one of the characters from the play within the play, dressed as
an ass.
She falls hopelessly in love with the ass and they wind flowers through
their
hair in her bower. Oberon must turn around the night's fun to regain
Titania's
love and put the lovers together again.
Within the 70 pages the story of one of
Shakespeare's best loved comedies is presented, along with a list of
characters, and drawings by Tomislav Tomic. Middle to upper primary
readers
will love this easy to digest introduction to the 400 year old story,
or have
just a great tale to read for themselves. Swindells has rewritten a
number of
other plays as well in this series for A & C Black of London. For
those
classrooms tackling Shakespeare, then this series will be a great
introduction
to the storylines of these plays, and help acquaint the students with
settings
and characters.
Fran Knight