To slow read Shakespeare, or not to slow read Shakespeare, that is the question...

Over the weekend, Gemma told me that she doesn’t like the way we do Shakespeare.

At that moment, she was sprawled out on her tummy on the bed with two books open in front of her. One book was Usborne's Illustrated Stories from Shakespeare and the other was a book in Bruce Coville’s Magic Shop series - The Skull of Truth. The skull, she said, was the skull from Hamlet, the “alas, poor Yorick, I knew him, Horatio” skull.

"Really?" I said.

"Really."

"Ooh," I said, "do you want to read Hamlet as our next Shakespeare tale?"

"No. I like reading Shakespeare. I just don't like the way we do it - three pages a week. I like reading a whole story."

Ugh. I get it. There is part of me that wants to do Shakespeare the way Gemma wants to do it because, ultimately, the goal is for her to have a good relationship with Shakespeare. But the other part of me sees the importance of slow reading.

Does everything need to be read slowly?

Do we need to continue slow reading Shakespeare tales because, in a couple of years, we'll be slow reading the full-length plays? Is it a habit-thing?