How to raise kids who love Shakespeare’s plays

There are two kinds of people in this world — those who want their kids to love Shakespeare, and those who could not care less. If you're reading this, you’re most likely the former, so I won’t try to convince you of why you’d want your kids to love and enjoy his works. 

If I were trying to convince you, I might point out that he was the greatest writer in history, and his influence is still felt more than 400 years after his death. But I get it if Shakespeare isn’t on your radar. There are a lot of things for parents to care about, and liking Shakespeare is somewhat lower on the priority list than, say, eating veggies and brushing teeth. 

That said, if you happen to love literature, and you love sharing it with your kids, and the thought of enjoying Shakespeare’s plays as a family sounds dreamy… you’ve come to the right place.

My kids love Shakespeare. They cheer when I pull out the giant volume of his works and prefer reading his plays with me to most other school subjects. (Math and handwriting don’t get anywhere near the same enthusiasm!) 

Much of the rich and beautiful vocabulary in these plays goes right over my kids’ heads, but the stories captivate their attention, and they pick up enough of the language to benefit from the exposure.

When asked why they like Shakespeare, my seven-year-old said, “He shows all the emotions, like he has comedies and tragedies. I like the comedies.” My 10-year-old said, “I like acting out the dramatic deaths. I like how in some of the plays the characters are vivid.” (He went on to clarify that “The characters were not vivid in Merchant of Venice, but in A Midsummer Night's Dream, the fairies are so vivid.”)

If you’d like your kids to enjoy Shakespeare, here’s what I did with my kids to brainwash teach them to love the Bard of Avon. 

While a child in fourth or fifth grade is ready to hear the unabridged plays, you can prep younger kids with adaptations and abridged versions.

My kids really enjoyed reading this book of Illustrated Stories from Shakespeare, listening to this audiobook of abridged versions, and watching this collection of Animated Tales (many of which are available free on YouTube). I’ve also heard good things about Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare by renowned children’s author Edith Nesbit.

I started sharing these with my children when my oldest was in first or second grade, and now they’ve become such a part of our family culture that even my preschooler knows Puck. To me, this part of parenting is so fun and life-giving!

When my oldest started fourth grade, we began reading aloud Shakespeare as part of his literature curriculum. Around age 9 or 10 is great.

You might start by reading aloud a summary of the upcoming section of the play (I like the summaries available from Folger) and then reading the section together. The summary helps the child to understand the text. 

We read just one or two scenes a week, making our way very slowly through each play over the course of three or four months. This pace gives them just enough Shakespeare at each sitting to pique their interest before the dense language starts to tire them.

We started with A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the comedies and histories are generally better for children than the tragedies. The Tempest and Twelfth Night would be great ones to start with, too.

Shakespeare is one of very few authors whom I don’t advise listening to as an audiobook with your kids, as his plays do contain occasional remarks that are not appropriate for kids. I verbally censor these as we read, and so far, my kids have never noticed. It would be nice if there were an edition with these bits removed but the rest of the beautiful language intact. 

These are plays, after all, not novels, and they were written to be acted on stage. My kids love acting out the scenes—the more dramatic, the better! These plays would be so much fun to read aloud and act out with friends, perhaps in a classroom or homeschool group.

My kids like to use LEGO figurines or puppets or other small toys to act out the play as I read it. They also like to choose one character each to voice, while I read the other parts. They especially love acting out the villain and clown characters.

I love the conversations we have about the plays and the things we learn together, and I love having an excuse to regularly read and revisit these seminal works. I hope these suggestions help you build your own delightful culture of Shakespeare and literature with your own family!