{"id":83400,"date":"2025-10-16T02:04:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T02:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/83400\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T02:04:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T02:04:13","slug":"an-experts-top-ten-books-to-spark-their-imagination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/83400\/","title":{"rendered":"an expert\u2019s top ten books to spark their imagination"},"content":{"rendered":"

As pupils head back to school, they may well encounter Shakespeare<\/a>\u2019s plays and poems \u2013 perhaps for the first time. <\/p>\n

I have written about books on Shakespeare\u2019s life or plays for children<\/a> and young adults<\/a> for the last three years: fiction and fact, picturebooks and graphic novels, early readers to full-blown novels. Here are my top ten texts that take Shakespeare, run with him, and sweep up readers as they go. <\/p>\n

Authors writing about Shakespeare for young people are surprisingly consistent in sticking to widely accepted scholarship. Authors\u2019 notes often acknowledge the academic research that inspired them.<\/p>\n

Readers are likely to come away from these books with greater understanding of Shakespeare, some pressing questions about him, and \u2013 above all \u2013 the experience of reading for pleasure. They are listed roughly in order of reading age.<\/p>\n

1. The Boy, the Bear, the Baron, the Bard by Gregory Rogers, 2004<\/p>\n

The young protagonist of this wordless picture book boots a football through time and onto Shakespeare\u2019s stage, sparking an irate bard\u2019s pursuit of him through a gorgeously-drawn Elizabethan London. <\/p>\n

The boy quickly finds allies in his flight \u2013 rescuing a caged bear and an imprisoned noble. He even lands on the royal barge, in time for a dance with Queen Elizabeth I and courtiers. All\u2019s well that ends well, but re-reading will enable you to spot quirky details in the drawings and put words in the characters\u2019 mouths.<\/p>\n

2. Bold and Brave Women from Shakespeare<\/a> by Anjna Chouhan and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust (authors), Becca Stadtlander (illustrator), 2024<\/p>\n

The organisation that looks after Shakespeare\u2019s houses in Stratford-upon-Avon has created this picture book anthology, with short sections on separate figures. <\/p>\n

While its title has echoes of Mary Cowden Clarke\u2019s 1850 book, The Girlhood of Shakespeare\u2019s Heroines, its content departs from her Victorian moralising. The depiction of characters, from Cleopatra to Lady Macbeth, offers feminist overtones and a range of skin tones. <\/p>\n

3. Rock Bottom<\/a> by Ross Montgomery (author) and Mark Beech (illustrator), 2020<\/p>\n

One instalment in a series of four \u201cShakespeare Shake-ups\u201d, this book for primary schoolers retells the story of A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream using the familiar devices of children staging a school production and plans to impress a crush crashing. <\/p>\n

I have laughed out loud reading these books. They tell relatable stories about friendship, awkwardness and teacher-pupil tensions. You might forget the plots are from the plays, they\u2019re so deftly retold, but Shakespeare buffs will enjoy spotting allusions.<\/p>\n

4. Much Ado About Nothing<\/a> by Steve Barlow and Steve Skidmore (adapters), Wendy Tan Shiau Wei (illustrator), 2022<\/p>\n

My favourite in a series of six editions of Shakespeare\u2019s plays in graphic novel form. Each has a pithy, modernised text and resources at either end of the book to support readers\u2019 understanding of both the play and the period. <\/p>\n

Much Ado also exemplifies the series\u2019 commitment to diversity. Importantly, this gels with the diverse casts students are likely to see in contemporary films and performances of Shakespeare, and reflects the ethnic diversity of school (and national) populations.<\/p>\n

From a popular British fantasy writer<\/a> for children, this novel was significantly inspired by the reconstruction of Shakespeare\u2019s Globe theatre in London. It\u2019s the most compelling of a slew of Globe-focused theatre adventures published at the turn of the millennium. <\/p>\n

A stage-mad American boy, grieving his parents, time-travels to early modern England and is mentored in acting \u2013 and surviving loss \u2013 by Shakespeare, who mourns his dead son, Hamnet. Plague contagion allows for some top-notch body swapping. <\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/p>\n

Shakespeare\u2019s Globe in London is a reconstruction of the Elizabethan Globe Theatre.
\n David G40\/Shutterstock<\/a><\/p>\n

The original \u201cchildren-in-disguise go on Shakespeare\u2019s stage\u201d novel \u2013 at least for me. It was a class text at the end of primary school. It differs from King of Shadows in opening with travelling players touring the Lake District, although it takes in London\u2019s early modern glitterati later. Real historical figures abound and are delightfully shady, as in biographical Shakespeare fiction generally.<\/p>\n

This take on destitute children in Elizabethan London running into a kindly, father-figure Shakespeare has various unique qualities. One is balancing the main plot about Henry, a pickpocket who has the supernatural ability to read any language, with cryptic fragments from \u201cthe Dark Lady\u201d of Shakespeare\u2019s sonnets, for whom the book is named. Here, she is imagined as the descendent of an African ruling elite. <\/p>\n

Akala is a Black British rapper and writer, whose work prominently features Shakespeare \u2013 though there are lashings of Charles Dickens\u2019 Oliver here too.<\/p>\n

8. Love Disguised by Lisa Klein, 2013<\/p>\n

Adolescent Shakespeare opens this novel narrating his Stratford childhood, his father\u2019s business woes, and plans to rescue his family\u2019s fortunes while working in the theatre. In addition to having Shakespeare as the protagonist, this book offers an unusual explanation for his wife Anne Hathaway\u2019s pregnancy before marriage<\/a>. This is territory well-trodden by scholars, but Klein inventively borrows plotlines from Shakespeare\u2019s Measure for Measure and All\u2019s Well that Ends Well in her interpretation. <\/p>\n

9. Saving Hamlet by Molly Booth, 2016<\/p>\n

In the vein of Hollywood Shakespeare movies, the narrator\u2019s high school is staging Hamlet and it\u2019s going disastrously. The novel mashes up this genre with time-travelling theatre adventure, so that assistant-director Emma moves back and forth at will between two theatre worlds. The ideas she gleans from each benefit the other, so two high-stakes productions of Shakespeare\u2019s famous tragedy are saved. <\/p>\n

Theatre-kids will enjoy a writer who really knows her stuff: oft-overlooked tech crews are well-served by details of lighting and sound production. Saving Hamlet features several modern-day lesbian and gay main characters, with contrasting experiences of coming out. <\/p>\n

10. Juliet Immortal by Stacey Jay, 2011<\/p>\n

I came to this book because of the Twilight saga<\/a>, and so may young readers with a taste for paranormal romance. It is set among teens staging Romeo and Juliet at their California high school. Narration is split between a modern-day girl, Ariel, and the undead Juliet. <\/p>\n

The story deals superbly with consent, relationship violence and toxic masculinity \u2013 all elements of the play<\/a> that literary critics have acknowledged \u2013 and also models positive alternatives. For those whose vampiric appetites aren\u2019t sated, there\u2019s an equally-gripping sequel: Romeo Redeemed.<\/p>\n

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org<\/a>. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org<\/a> The Conversation UK may earn a commission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As pupils head back to school, they may well encounter Shakespeare\u2019s plays and poems \u2013 perhaps for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[288,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-83400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-books","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}