Georgetown University professor on my children’s Beowulf book

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Tod Linafelt, Georgetown University says of my Beowulf for kids:

Joshua Gray’s rendering of Beowulf for children is ‘grand and gruesome,’ just like the monster Grendel that stalks its lines. Gray captures both the fearsomeness of the poem’s monsters and the artful alliteration of its Anglo-Saxon origins, while leaving out the long speeches that would turn away many young readers. Hook the kids with this version, and hope that they will return to the longer poem in later years.

And in case you missed the sneak peak of the fabulous art by Sean Yates, go here.

Children’s Beowulf Endorsed By Benjamin Bagby

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In my quest to get my children’s adaptation of Beowulf put on the big stage, this weekend I realized I had to get big names to endorse the poem.

I wanted one of the names to come from someone very familiar with the original text, and my search for who that might might be did not take long: almost immediately, I thought of Benjamin Bagby. I emailed his USA contact last night, who responded by telling me he forwarded the email on to Bagby, and this morning I got the email I was hoping for.

For those who don’t know who Benjamin Bagby is, let me fill you in: this guy memorized the first 1000 lines or so of the original text — that is, in Anglo-Saxon and not a translation of the text — got hold of an Anglo-Saxon harp by hiring someone to recreate the harp based on archaeological finds, and he tours around the country performing live in an insanely awesome one-man show. I highly recommend seeing his performance, if you ever are able to. It’s pretty incredible.

So, this endorsement is pretty big. Here is what he had to say of my poem.

Joshua Gray’s poetic re-telling of the Beowulf epic as a tale for children gets to the essence of the action with a use of modern English which is accessible and clear for young minds, listening while busily building their own image-worlds. My own experience is in telling this story to adults in a language they no longer understand, but I have the sense that this new text may well encourage very young listeners, years later (after their bedtime stories are a distant memory), to recall this tale with pleasure and to discover a vibrant curiosity to know more about the doings of Hrothgar, Grendel and Beowulf. It will serve as a wise and entertaining investment in keeping this important story alive and well in our culture’s memory, as oral poetry and a fertile field for imagination, in both children and those who read to them.

Benjamin Bagby, performer of Beowulf in the original Anglo-Saxon

So where are we with the children’s poem? I saw some of the images that Sean Yates has come up with, and I have to say I am super psyched by what he has come up with. The book should definitely be for sale in January 2012.

Children’s illustrated version of Beowulf, in anglo-saxon verse

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It’s been almost ten years since I wrote a children’s version of Beowulf. I wrote it in anglo-saxon verse, and have been wanting it to be a children’s book for some time now.

At the time, my six-year-old son was really into Beowulf, because I told him the story at bedtime. That Christmas he got a really nice version of it from my sister. The book was well done, with beautiful illustrations, and was pretty true to the story. But I had a very basic problem with it: it was written in prose.

Thinking that a bit too sacrilegious, I went on Amazon and horrified by what I found — not a single children’s version of Beowulf written in poetry. Firmly believing children should experience the story as a poem as well as adults, I realized there was only one thing to do, and that was to write it myself.

The problem with publishing it at the time was that it took up a lot of real estate for a publisher/editor to accept; however, with the advent of online journals and my eventual willingness to accept them as a valid means of publication (I love holding books in my hand and smelling the paper — what can I say), it was eventually picked up by qarrtsiluni.com early in 2011 for its translation issue.

And when it was, it was edited with my permission by qarrtsiluni’s guest editor Alex Cigale who undeniably made it better and truer to its anglo-saxon form.

And so, I have secured a wonderful illustrator, Sean Yates to make an ebook out of the poem; Zouch Magazine is also backing the digital project as its publisher.

Unfortunately, it won’t be ready for Christmas, but look for it in early 2012.