Gr 3-6 Focusing on the now commonplace words that Shakespeare introduced into the English language, Sutcliffe describes the inner workings of the Globe Theatre and the Bard's genius. The verso of each spread presents historical facts about Elizabethan London and the theatrical tradition it spawned, with Shakespeare's words interspersed amid Sutcliffe's lively prose, while the recto highlights the words, explains their meanings (both original and contemporary), and cites their usage in the poet's plays. Shelley's meticulously detailed painted pen-and-ink drawings brim with life and convey a clear sense of 1606 London, "a bustling, jostling, clinging, singing, stinking, head-chopping, pickpocketing wonder of a city," while still managing to individualize the personages both onstage and off. They are perfectly married to Sutcliff's concise, humorous, fact-filled prose. While the author references the few known truths of Shakespeare's life, the emphasis is on his once-inventive but now familiar words, thus setting this title apart from most standard biographies. Readers will discover the origins of basic terms and expressions, such as hurry, fashionable , and cold-blooded . The book opens and concludes with a letter from Sutcliffe laying out her intentions in penning this work and discussing what we know of Shakespeare's life. Pair this gem with Diane Stanley and Peter Vennema's Bard of Avon: The Story of William Shakespeare (Morrow, 1992) for a full portrait of Shakespeare's genius. VERDICT A beautifully presented, original approach to the playwright's lasting contributions to the English language.— Nancy Menaldi-Scanlan, formerly at LaSalle Academy, Providence, RI

Despite both title and subtitle, the value of this picture book lies in its delightful, realistic illustrations and the simple text's introduction to Elizabethan theater. About 30 terms Shakespeare either coined or made common are included meaningfully in the narrative, a pair or so on each two-page spread. The narrative itself explains the place of theater in Londoners' daily lives (for both audience members and actors), the Globe Theatre's architecture, and how Shakespeare's verbal richness spread into daily figures of speech. But it's the illustrations that steal the show. Each spread is crowded with intricate, colorful details that seem to spring to life in, for instance, a cutaway of backstage actions, the crowd arriving for an afternoon's performance, how different social classes positioned themselves during the play, London street scenes, and so on. These watercolor and pen-and-ink images invite endless searching of the crowds' unique faces and Thames River vistas.