Kids Book Buzz Blog Tour: Something Wicked (No Fear Shakespeare)

Ahh, Macbeth. Why must such a lovely script intimidate so many people?

Perhaps because they only read it. Perhaps that's part of the problem. Shakespeare was written for the stage, after all, not the page. But still ... why the mental block when it comes to the Bard?

"Shakespeare? Oh, I'm not really a big reader. Besides, I'd never understand it."

Here's my advice: throw the book across the room and buy tickets!

While you wait for your credit card to go through, check out this Barnes and Noble project, a series called No Fear Shakespeare, which "puts Shakespeare's language side-by-side with a facing-page translation into modern English—the kind of English people actually speak today." You can purchase print copies, or read the texts online.

So Macbeth goes something like this:

BANQUO
The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them. Whither are they vanished?

BANQUO
The earth has bubbles, just like the water, and these creatures must have come from a bubble in the earth. Where did they disappear to?

MACBETH
Into the air, and what seemed corporal
Melted, as breath into the wind. Would they had stayed.

MACBETH
Into thin air. Their bodies melted like breath in the wind. I wish they had stayed!

BANQUO
Were such things here as we do speak about?
Or have we eaten on the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner?

BANQUO
Were these things we're talking about really here? Or are we both on drugs?

Keep reading here!