{"id":1115,"date":"2016-04-28T12:32:14","date_gmt":"2016-04-28T16:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/?p=1115"},"modified":"2016-03-29T20:34:54","modified_gmt":"2016-03-30T00:34:54","slug":"review-beowulf-by-michael-morpurgo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/?p=1115","title":{"rendered":"Review: Beowulf by Michael Morpurgo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/morpurgo-_beowulf.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1116\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1116\" src=\"http:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/morpurgo-_beowulf-197x300.jpg\" alt=\"morpurgo-_beowulf\" width=\"197\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/morpurgo-_beowulf-197x300.jpg 197w, https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/morpurgo-_beowulf.jpg 460w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 197px) 100vw, 197px\" \/><\/a>Candlewick Press,\u00a0 2006<br \/>\nISBN: 9780763632069<\/p>\n<p>Available: New<\/p>\n<p>High school English teachers will cheer to see this accessible, visually attractive retelling of\u00a0 <em>Beowulf <\/em>by the British Children&#8217;s Laureate, Michael Morpurgo. The language used in translations and retellings is often a barrier preventing teens from experiencing the impact of the dramatic battles between heroes and monsters. While Morpurgo&#8217;s writing does still use challenging vocabulary, it is told more as a narrative story than as a long poem, and Morpurgo&#8217;s fine storytelling, accompanied by vivid color illustrations, will be a more comfortable way for most readers to engage with\u00a0the text.<\/p>\n<p>I was surprised to discover the many references to Christianity in the story, because the title character certainly isn\u2019t turning the other cheek! If violent struggles to the death with cannibalistic monsters, evil sea-hags, and death-dragons are your cup of tea, you&#8217;ll want to spend some time revisiting the story of <em>Beowulf <\/em>as retold here. Collection promotion note: This book is considered nonfiction and falls into the 820s. Pairing it with fiction with similar themes\u00a0could encourage its checkout. Highly recommended for middle and high school library media centers and for young adult collections in public libraries.<\/p>\n<p>Contains: Violence, gore, cannibalism, decapitation, references to Christianity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Candlewick Press,\u00a0 2006 ISBN: 9780763632069 Available: New High school English teachers will cheer to see this accessible, visually attractive retelling of\u00a0 Beowulf by the British Children&#8217;s Laureate, Michael Morpurgo. The language used in translations and retellings is often a barrier preventing teens from experiencing the impact of the dramatic battles between heroes and monsters. While [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-angelsdemons"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Eu9f-hZ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1115"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1117,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1115\/revisions\/1117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}