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| A Midsummer Night's Dream | 
 enlarge | Author: William Shakespeare
Creator: Bruce Coville
Publisher: Dial
Category: Book
List Price: $18.99
Buy New: $4.15
You Save: $14.84 (78%)
Buy New/Used from $3.26
Avg. Customer Rating:  (10 reviews)
Sales Rank: 315067
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Edition: Library Binding
Reading Level: Ages 9-12
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 48
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 11.2 x 8.4 x 0.4
ISBN: 0803717849
Dewey Decimal Number: 822.33
EAN: 9780803717848
ASIN: 0803717849
Publication Date: October 1, 1996
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
A simplified prose retelling of Shakespeare's play about the strange events that take place in a forest inhabited by fairies who magically transform the romantic fate of two young couples.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 A Midsummer Night's Dream Retold for Comprehension and Enjoyment November 17, 2008
Bruce Coville does a masterly attempt at making A Midsummer Night's Dream comprehensible and more understandable for younger learners of Shakespeare. The illustrations are beautiful and really helps tell the story. I have to admit I'm still confused about all the details in the story but it helped a lot. The story is still pretty charming and romantic.
 Lovely, but still.. April 29, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Most adults who read this know the basic story of the book: how King Oberon schemes to use magical lust to solve a dispute between himself and his bride Titania and how Puck, the sprite entrusted to carry out the scheme, manages to entangle four mortal lovers into the mix and nearly ruins everything. It is this scheming between Puck and Oberon that presents the main source of humor in the story; when you see two hapless men professing love to the same baffled woman and two women fighting like cats over men, you can't help but grin at the mayhem the now exasperated Oberon has caused.
However, I was never quite able to completely enjoy the humor that occured at the expense of Titania and the mortals. Call me old-fashioned, but I personally can't have a good laugh at the idea of using others like puppets in a play and my main concern here is whether all the humor in this story is appropriate for a child audience. Sure, Coville breaks down the adult dialogue, but that's only part of it; some of the main characters in the story simply don't have very strong morals. King Oberon humiliates his wife, steals something from her, uses a form of mind control on her, manipulates the humans in the story like they're nothing, and never shows any regret or pause! In this version, he doesn't even express pity for Titania's condition like he did in the original tale; he just pulls her like a puppet until he gets what he wants, then grins and tells Puck to undo everything, which I found infuriating and unsatisfying. Is this really a good story for kids? They should know it's not nice to take advantage of people, play tricks on them, and all the other various things characters do to each other here with no consequences.
I'm not a hater of this tale in general. I love the Rupert Everet version of the film, particularly because Oberon and even Puck show a trace of conscience while still retaining their typical mischievousness and Titania's actually treated like a fleshed out character instead of a cut-out made for Oberon's humor. I just wish Coville had treated Oberon and Puck like more than a plague visited on those they inflicted their tricks on. It's not an awful tale by any means, but I suggest reading with your kids.
On to a positive note, though: the illustrations are absolutely lovely and perfectly faerie. In fact, this was the reason I got it. The fairies are gorgeous, the humans classical Roman beauties, and Puck an adorable child who bears a striking resemblance to Oberon. (This is a particularly interesting note because Puck was actually acknowledged by one source of research as Oberon's son by a mortal woman. Apparently, Coville chose to acknowledge this.) As a lovely visual treat, this book is highly recommended!
Excellent Early Exposure to Shakespeare January 11, 2007
I had my doubts about introducing Shakespeare to my 7 year old...until I got hold of Bruce Coville's book! My son loved the story and was really able to follow the complicated plots. He has a picture of each character at the beginning of the book for them to follow and we kept reviewing who was who and who liked who. Wonderful! He still likes to pull the book out and look at the beautiful pictures and review in his mind the story.
Recommended for Children of All Ages April 15, 2005
My 5th grade students reading the original text of Romeo and Juliet love this book and the same author illustrator's version of that story for the simplicity of the language and for the phenomenal illustrations. The girls are especially interested, and wait for a turn to read the book.
My own 4 and 5 year old children love the book, and ask to have it read to them every night at bedtime. They love fairies in general, and that was their original draw to the story (along with the amazing pictures). They now play "Midsummer Night's Dream" at playtime, and the 5 year old actually watched (and loved)a DVD of the original language production after several readings of this.
I also highly recommend the same team's version of Romeo and Juiet for the same reasons, both 5th graders and preschoolers love them.
 A Love Potion Gone Bad September 16, 2003
1 out of 15 found this review helpful
The main charcters in this book are Lysander,Titania,Helena,Bottom,Puck and Oberon.You can tell that those names come from a book.Well their are two couples and one of them which is Lysander and Titania are having some problems.Titanias father doesn't want her to marry the man that she really wants to marry or the man that she really loves.So Titanias and Lysander plan to run away so that Titania won't have to marry someone that she doesn't love.Also someone in the book turns into a donkey.I would tell pepople to read this book because ,its interesting and has alot of pictureds.If you like funny stuff or weird stuff that happens in books then this is the book for you.The book is a easy book ,to take a test on also.If you like some weird love stories then this is a good book.Its also a short book.Some pretty strange charcters in this book.
If I was gonna start all over again I wouldn't read this book becauseof?Its not something that you wanna keep reading.It doesn't have people that you can actually belive in.Somethings that happen in the book are unusual and probly won't ever happen in life .
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