Friday, March 16, 2007

By any other name would smell as sweet

Critter and I went out for Caesar salads and pie this evening. Over much salad crunching, she filled me in on her school day, the last day of winter term. She commented on how happy she was to not have to take track in PE, which teacher she might have for health, and the book she read for Block. A very simple, fifth-grade level book which she read, in it's entirety, in under 30 minutes. I was not very impressed as I know she can read far more advanced works.

“…it was a picture book like Romeo and Juliet was. And that one was marked really high,” she countered.

I remembered the book. It was an illustrated, slimmed-down version of the classic. The main monologues were there in Shakespeare’s prose but the transition pieces were in modern, school-age English. “Well, that one kept the original bits of Shakespeare in it. And it had a lot of symbolism—“

“—and big words… 'Take thee yonder cow to thy utopiary'...’” She giggled. “I just made that up.”

I grinned. “'…that I were a glove upon that hand…'”

“'…so I can touch that chin'. Yeah, that one.” Critter tried another part of the famous monologue. “And Juliet’s up on her balcony…'through yonder window breaks wind…'”

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