Product Description

From Hamlet to Romeo and Juliet to A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare's celebrated works have touched people around the world.

Aliki combines literature, history, biography, archaeology, and architecture in this richly detailed and meticulously researched introduction to Shakespeare's world-his life in Elizabethan times, the theater world, and the Globe, for which he wrote his plays. Then she brings history full circle to the present-day reconstruction of the Globe theater.

Aliki has created an animated tableau for Shakespeare lovers of all ages to savor!

William Shakespeare was perhaps the greatest English playwright ever. Take a tour of Shakespeare's life and times, through the crowded streets of sixteenth-century London to the boisterous Globe theater and other playhouses where his work flourished.

Then follow Shakespeare's legacy to the present day and to the Globe's glorious reopening and its 400th anniversary. Learn, step-by-step, how the theater was reconstructed using the same methods builders used to construct the original Globe.

With Aliki's characteristically thorough and animated words and pictures, this beautifully crafted book provides a rich introduction to Shakespeare and his world. Sprinkled with quotations from Shakespeare's plays, it is richly enhanced by a map of Elizabethan London, a glossary of historical dates, a chronology of Shakespeare's works, a section of colloquial expressions, and a list of relevant sites to visit

2000 Notable Children's Books (ALA), Notable Children's Trade Books in the Field of Social Studies 2000, National Council for SS & Child. Book Council , NCTE List of Notable Children's Books in Lang. Arts 00, Horn Book Fanfare 2000 and Teacher's Choices for 2000 (IRA)

01-02 Young Hoosier Book Award Masterlist (Gr 4-6), 00-01 Utah Book Award (Informational Books), and 00-01 Texas Bluebonnet Award Masterlist

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1375247 in Books
• Published on: 1999-03-31
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 1.28 pounds
• Binding: Library Binding
• 48 pages

From Amazon.com
"How many ages hence/ Shall this our lofty scene be acted over/ In states unborn and accents yet unknown!" In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, he prophesies his own future more accurately than he may ever have dreamed. Although Shakespeare's works have touched people everywhere, very little is known of his life. Well-loved author and illustrator Aliki pulls together clues from writings, drawings, history, birth, marriage, and death records, and from Shakespeare's own plays, in this vibrant introduction to one of the greatest writers of all time.

Cleverly arranged as a play, with an aside and acts one through five, the book features a quotation from one of Shakespeare's plays on every spread. Bite-sized chunks of text are interspersed with the lovely detailed illustrations Aliki is famous for, making what might be a difficult subject very accessible. In addition, there are charts listing Shakespeare's plays, a chronology of his life, sidebars with mini-biographies of significant people in his life, and a partial list of words and expressions he invented (gloomy, moonbeam, mountaineer, zany, and bated breath, among 2,000 others!). Aliki also devotes a special section to Sam Wanamaker, a 20th-century man with a dream to reopen Shakespeare's Globe playhouse in London. (Ages 7 and older) --Emilie Coulter

From Publishers Weekly
William Shakespeare may get top billing in the title of this picture book, but the emphasis within is less certain. Aliki (Mummies Made in Egypt) doesn't investigate Shakespeare as a personality; dividing her work into five "acts," she focuses more on Elizabethan culture, dramatic conventions and living conditions, then shifts to Sam Wanamaker and the process of renovating the Globe in the 20th century. Aliki employs serviceable, almost pedestrian statements to convey the history, stretching occasionally toward cleverness. Of the open-ceilinged Globe, she comments, "When it rained, [the audience] knew it." The material on Wanamaker's restoration sheds light on the process by which the new Globe was built ("The first and only thatched roof in London since 1666"), although the character of Sam, with whom readers are meant to identify, remains bland. Pages are loaded with small panel illustrations of characters and historic figures in exaggerated poses. They capture a jolly theatrical spirit (nearly everyone in the quaint colored-pencil pictures wears a gentle smile), yet the many crowd scenes do not repay scrutiny. Unlike Diane Stanley's work in Bard of Avon, these pictures give only a broad idea of the historical context. Quotations from the bard populate the margins, and numerous appendixes provide facts. The wide range of information here makes this book a useful introduction to Elizabethan theater, despite its disparate themes and generalized pictures. All ages. (May)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Grade 3-6-This captivating biography introduces the real-life players and masterfully scripts historical events. Engaging illustrations and an impressive amount of information make this presentation a hit. (May)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.