RAR #264: How to Read Classics (and Actually Enjoy Them)
Read-Aloud Revival ®
Sarah Mackenzie
4.9 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 15 May 2025
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Join us for Shakespeare Summer!
Why should we read the classics?
So many of us want to read and enjoy them, but we don’t want to spend our precious free time feeling like we’re incompetent because we just don’t get it or that the internet has completely ruined our brains (is this just me?).
This winter in RAR Premium, we did a whole retreat about falling in love with your reading life again, and today I'm sharing one of those sessions, called How to Read Classics (and Actually Enjoy Them). RAR Community Manager Kelsey Murphy and I talk all about how to find your way into the classics and *really* begin to relish them.
Most of this translates to reading classics with your kids, but this session really is for you. We want you to discover the fun and enjoyment in classic literature because it makes your life richer and better. It also makes you a more peaceful and joy-filled mama to those sweet kids of yours.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- Helpful entry points to reading the classics
- How to approach classics as an invitation to learning and enjoyment (not like homework)
- Why watching the movie first will not get your Homeschool Mama card revoked (we promise!)
Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/read-the-classics
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | We are gearing up around here for a Shakespeare summer, and I want to invite you to join us. |
| 0:09.0 | There is nothing, absolutely nothing. |
| 0:12.4 | I would rather read aloud and enjoy with my kids than a play of Shakespeare's. |
| 0:17.3 | And I am bringing all of my joy for Shakespeare to RAR Premium this summer. |
| 0:22.5 | We're diving into a midsummer night's dream. |
| 0:25.5 | Enough of you have asked, Sarah, we know you love Shakespeare. |
| 0:28.4 | How on earth do you teach your kids to love Shakespeare, too? |
| 0:31.4 | And now I'm going to show you step by step. |
| 0:34.2 | Think of it as RAR Premium's relaxed and joyful book club style meets one of Shakespeare's |
| 0:41.1 | funniest comedies. Honestly, I think Shakespeare Summer is the best program we have ever created at |
| 0:47.8 | Read Aloud Revival. I know it's the most fun I've ever had getting it ready. Head to rarprimim.com or text the word Shakespeare to the number 33oud Revival. I'm Sarah McKenzie. Around here, we have been focusing a lot |
| 1:26.1 | on falling back in love with our own reading lives. |
| 1:30.3 | We talk all the time about how we want to help our kids fall in love with their reading lives. |
| 1:36.3 | And we do that primarily through reading aloud, of course. |
| 1:40.3 | But there's also something incredibly important about falling in love with our own reading |
| 1:44.8 | lives and really just reading for the delight of it. |
| 1:47.6 | Not reading because we're trying to be a better mother or a better homeschooler or a better |
| 1:51.6 | homemaker or whatever it is, but just reading for the sheer delight of it. |
| 1:56.1 | Now, if you don't believe that's one of your primary jobs as a mother. I would encourage you, gently, of course, |
| 2:03.0 | to go back and listen to the Read Aloud Revival podcast episode called Reading for Fun is more |
| 2:09.1 | important than you think. Because it is. Reading for fun is more important than you think. |
| 2:14.1 | And I don't just mean, like I said, reading to make you better at something, |
... |
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