Macbeth
Recommended. Age: 16+. A Catholic review of this book for parents.
Our review
Macbeth is a brave Scottish soldier. Three witches tell him he will be king, and he and his wife murder the good king to make it happen. One evil deed leads to more, and in the end Macbeth loses everything. This is a play about what sin does to a soul. Macbeth listens to a temptation, chooses murder, and it destroys his peace, his marriage and his life. The witches are evil and their promises are tricks. Nothing about them is made attractive. Catholic schools assign it in the last years of high school. It is bloody, and a mother and child are killed, so it is for older teens.
For parents
Read aloud, or better, read in parts together, from about fourteen. Independent reading from sixteen or seventeen, which matches Seton's grade 12 placement. Know before you hand it over: a king is murdered in his bed, a mother and her young son are killed, Lady Macbeth calls on dark spirits to harden her and later appears to take her own life, and the play ends with a severed head. The witches are real and evil in the story. They tempt, and they lie by telling half truths. Ask: did the witches make Macbeth do it, or did he choose? Why can't Lady Macbeth wash her hands clean? What would confession have offered her? Why does one sin make the next one easier? Tell your teen plainly that fortune telling is forbidden to Catholics, and that the play shows why.