Beowulf – Cannonball Read 17

Maybe if they taught the epic poem this way, we’d get it!

Bea Wolf by Zach Weinersmith

September 15, 2023 by BlackRaven 2 Comments

The graphic novel Bea Wolf was both a book I loved and was thinking after only a few pages, “Just what exactly am I reading?” There are layers upon layers upon layers to the story arcs, and yet this is a simple story. If I have to say the first work that comes to mind when describing it, I would say Artistic. The second, Confusing. The third, Simple-Beauty (okay I know that’s technically two, but that’s what fits!). Zach Weinersmith was influenced by the story of Beowulf, and therefore […]

This will be one of my year-end favorites

Bea Wolf by Zach Weinersmith, Boulet

March 31, 2023 by ElCicco Leave a Comment

Bea Wolf is a graphic novel that re-imagines the classic epic poem Beowulf. I’ve reviewed Seamus Heaney’s award-winning translation of Beowulf as well as Maria Dahvana Headley’s Beowulf-inspired novel The Mere Wife (an excellent read) but this Beowulf is a little different. And it is also outstanding! Bea Wolf is Beowulf for kids. It is clever and hilarious with incredibly good black and white drawings by Boulet. Much like a Bugs Bunny cartoon, kids could read this and get a good laugh out of it, […]

Hwæt? Bro!

Beowulf: A New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley

January 9, 2021 by LittlePlat 7 Comments

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m not much one for reading poetry. I don’t know if I have some sort of mental tone-deafness or some other strange issue, but I can never get the cadence and tone right in my head. It has to be read aloud. Now while this is something that I can do myself, I prefer having poetry read to me. This was something Maria Dahvana Headley had in mind when she was working on a more contemporary translation of […]

After all is said and done, more is said than done.

Aesop's Fables by Aesop

Beowulf by Unknown

Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling

Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules by David Sedaris

March 10, 2019 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

The whole of this post deals with how we tell stories and who we tell those stories to, and what it means to tell THOSE stories in Those ways. Mostly it’s a handful of audiobook I was listening to this wekeend as I played video games and drove around town. Aesop’s Fables I teach Aesop’s Fables to students, especially my English 12 (collab/special education) class because it allows us to look very directly for the ways in which we connect the words of the […]

When white women cry, people die

November 8, 2018 by ElCicco 1 Comment

#cbr10bingo So Shiny The only reason I read Beowulf for my last selection was because I wanted to read The Mere Wife, a 2018 novel which I had heard was an innovative take on Beowulf from the point of view of the monster Grendel’s mother, and I wanted to have the epic poem fresh in mind for this. I read Madeline Miller’s Circe earlier this year and loved her imagining of Circe’s point of view vis-a-vis the events of The Odyssey, and initial reviews of […]

Award Winner #cbr10bingo

October 30, 2018 by ElCicco Leave a Comment

#cbr10bingo Award Winner Heaney’s Beowulf won the Whitbread Award Beowulf is a classic epic poem that many students read in high school or college. Featuring brave warriors, terrifying monsters, good leaders and bad, Beowulf has been translated by many different scholars and has even been put into graphic novel form. This review will focus on the widely praised translation by Irish poet Seamus Heaney, which won the Whitbread Award. Beowulf is set about 1000 years ago in Denmark and Sweden. This is a feudal world, […]

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