Shakespeare on Record

A few years ago, my grandmother passed on to me a set of children’s records from the 1950s and 60s.  Many of them were filled with odd arrangements of classical music or marching bands, but a few turned out to be really special.  In particular, one which included train adventures–Train to the Zoo and Train to the Farm–turned out to be quite a treasure to our family.

Sadly, my childhood Fisher Price record player stopped working a few weeks ago, and I’ve been mourning it ever since.  Until this weekend, when I found this website: artsreformation.com/records.  While looking for some audiobooks related to Shakespeare, I came across A Child’s Introduction to Shakespeare narrated by Mary Douglas Dirks.  It had been recorded in mp3 format, along with a long list of records from the 1950s and 60s.

I did listen to the Shakespeare recording a bit, and the quality was pretty comparable to the records my grandmother gave me.  However, I wasn’t all that impressed with the story being told…but that’s not to say some folks might enjoy it.  Especially parents or grandparents like me for whom some of the records are part of happy by-gone days.  We’ll probably listen to it again when the kids are a little older, hoping it will be more captivating then.   For now, thought, we’re definitely looking forward to downloading some of the other records, including Cinderella, Robin Hood, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

For more conventional resources on teaching Shakespeare, see my earlier post, Growing Up Shakespeare.  Or Janie’s personal reflection Shakespeare R Us.  Also, don’t forget to join us in our Read Along of C.S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength next week.

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