Wednesday, November 3, 2010

The Shakespeare Stealer by Gary Blackwood

I put this on my list before our trip to England this past summer. It looked like a fun read and it was about the players of The Globe during Shakespeare's time.  It was an insightful historical look during that time when everyone wanted their hands on William Shakespeare's plays and how many of the plays were stolen. I liked how it explained why that was so bad for his theatre company to let other companies perform his plays.
It starts with Widge, an orphan taken in as an apprentice. He learns a secret written code from a doctor, who then sells him to a man who wants Widge to use this skill to copy one of Shakespeare's plays, Hamlet.  Widge is successful after his second trip to the theatre, but it gets stolen from his wallet.  He then pretends to want to be a player so he can steal the play and save his life from his new master.  But, it is tough to steal. One, they keep it locked up in a chest in a locked room. And two, the players become family, something he has never had. And he makes friends, something he has never done.  Can he betray them?  It's a tough decision  that keeps you reading to see how he will make the right decision and still live.

2 comments:

Linda said...

Never heard of it before, but it sounds good. I'll have to pick it up sometime.

MaDonna Maurer said...

I'd never heard of it before either. I just searched on amazon for teen books on London and it came up.