So let's say that I've decided this year we're going to focus on epic literature

[conuly]

This isn't actually a hypothetical, that is what I've decided, but let's pretend it is.

Does anybody know of any good adaptations for younger people of ANY epics (not just the usual suspects) they'd like to recommend?

Comments

[killing_rose]

Wishbone!

[conuly]

I'm thinking to read.

[siderea]

How young is the younger one in reading-years?

[conuly]

You mean in actual ability to read? Two years above grade level. She can barely spell* but she can pack away books all right.

* It's a great improvement that now she spells like a fourth grader who isn't very good at spelling rather than a first grader who isn't very good at spelling. Spending time texting her friend Eve has definitely paid off.

[siderea]

...is that a word problem?

Woman, what is the reader-age of the child? Sixth?

ETA: Have they read D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths yet?

[conuly]

Sixth-ish. (I don't really take reading levels that seriously after I noticed that one book will, depending on the leveling system you use, be rated "third grade", "midway through fourth grade" and "sixth grade", and yet another will be "fifth grade", "end of fifth grade" and "somewhere in fourth book", same systems, same order.)

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

Further down this list there are some unusual suspects, shorter and more modern (like parts of Tolkien) that might be a bridge from now to earlier ones. For getting past the style of some of the classic classic ones, you might look at Lewis's PREFACE TO PARADISE LOST.

For a modern book readable at child's level that has some marks of epic, there's REDWALL.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=sr_nr_p_lbr_books_authors__6/280-4734138-3573259?fst=as%3Aoff&rh=n%3A266239%2Cn%3A%211025612%2Cn%3A275389%2Cn%3A275117%2Cn%3A591428%2Cn%3A591438&ie=UTF8&qid=1438449937

[conuly]

I'm thinking more along the lines of older epics, like the Shahnahmeh (which I simply cannot spell) or the Iliad (which I can).

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Check out this shortened version of the Ramayana (http://www.amazon.com/Ramayana-Shortened-Version-Penguin-Classics/dp/0143039679/ref=sr_1_23?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1438596229&sr=1-23&keywords=medieval+epics) by R.K. Narayan! I would also highly recommend Evangeline Walton's version of the Mabinogion (http://www.amazon.com/Mabinogion-Tetralogy-Evangeline-Walton/dp/1585675040/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1438596406&sr=1-1&keywords=evangeline+walton+mabinogion), John Gardner's version of Gilgamesh (http://www.amazon.com/Gilgamesh-John-Gardner/dp/0394740890/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1438596492&sr=1-4&keywords=gilgamesh+poem), and Deirdre of the Sorrows (http://www.amazon.com/Deirdre-Sorrows-Conchobar-Classic-Millington/dp/1502444119/ref=sr_1_cc_6?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1438597160&sr=1-6-catcorr&keywords=deirdre+of+the+sorrows) by John M. Synge. Enjoy!

[conuly]

Thanks :)