Shakespeare : His Work and His World - Hardcover

Michael Rosen MA, PhD is one of the most popular contemporary poets and authors of books for children. His titles include We're Going on a Bear Hunt (Winner of the Smarties Book Prize), Little Rabbit Foo-Foo and This Is Our House. He has written many books of poetry and is the presenter of Poems by Post on the BBC World Service and Word of Mouth on BBC Radio 4, he received the Eleanor Farjcon Award for services to children's literature in 1997. Robert Ingpen was born in Australia in 1936 and spent years working as an artist for the UN before starting to write and illustrate books in 1970. He has published over one hundred books in the last thirty years and, in 1986, was awarded the highest international accolade for his work, the Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration.

Rosen's (Classic Poetry) compelling text and Ingpen's (Who Is the World For?) dramatic paintings invite readers into the "extraordinary and dangerous times" in which the Bard wrote his famous plays. The narrative and design divide into distinct sections ideal for browsing. To set the stage, Rosen introduces "A Plot!" and details how, in 1598, to avoid paying their landlord, actors covertly pulled down the timber from the Curtain theater to reconstruct the Globe (a portion of which Shakespeare owned) on the opposite side of the Thames. Most chapters begin with engaging, chatty rhetorical questions (relayed, however, in a sometimes distracting typeface) such as "What's So Special About Shakespeare?" and "So How Does Someone Stay That Famous?" Some metaphors, such as comparing Shakespeare's plays to a "house full of many amazing rooms," become a bit strained, but the narrative benefits from liberal quotation of Shakespeare's plays. Rosen effectively sets the historical context and reconstructs and imagines the events and circumstances of Shakespeare's life, while also demonstrating the surprising and pervasive extent of his linguistic legacy. Ingpen's atmospheric paintings evoke the romance of the era and capture the pageantry of the plays. A strong and worthy companion for readers exploring Shakespeare. Ages 12-15.

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