One of ten top Shakespeare books for children he tagged for the Guardian:King of Shadows by Susan CooperRead about another book on the list.
This is not a retelling of the plays, but a novel that includes Shakespeare as a main character. Nat Field, a young American, travels to London to play Puck in a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the reconstructed Globe Theatre. He contracts a fever, and wakes up to find himself in Elizabethan times, and about to play Puck in the premiere of the play. The time-shift element is convincingly handled, and the reason behind it provides an elegant plot twist at the end of the book. Cooper's Shakespeare is warm, human, and sympathetic. I would recommend the novel to teenagers, or advanced readers.
--Marshal Zeringue
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