At 6:30 in the morning?
Bud woke up early and was reading Who was William Shakespeare? by Celeste Mannis, a biography for children. Both kids are devouring biographies now--Harriet Tubman, Paul Revere, Ben Franklin, Ferdinand Magellan, and more. And Bud picked up Shakespeare when he woke up.
But he had questions, first about the Elizabethan age. "Mom, did you know Queen Elizabeth's mom was beheaded!?!" Sure, I said, "Divorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, beheaded, survived." This kept Bud busy for awhile, wrapping his mind around the profligate king. Then, "Mom, do you know Romeo and Juliet?" When I told him the bare-bones story, he was upset. "Why did the message take so long? How did he get poison?" Never was there a story of more woe . . .
So I tried to distract him with the comedies--the love-hate of Much Ado About Nothing, the faeries and dreams of A Midsummer Night's Dream. We talked about how the stories are dramatic representations of the best and worst of humanity, meant to instruct, inspire, entertain, but the were not real. "So how did the actors play dead?" Thankfully, we eventually got distracted by the actual book, specifically the quotes in the front. Mama and I tried to complete the snippets--"To thine own self be true," "Good night, sweet prince," "A horse, a horse, a kingdom for a horse!" It was definitely early in my day to be recalling Shakespeare!
Finally, as he left to get dressed, "Mom, did you know they think Shakespeare went into hiding? He might have been a secret Catholic!"
I think these books might be a little old for Bud.
Maybe even for me.
