Starred Review Aliki takes on an ambitious project and completes it with a pervasive sense of history and fine sense of style. Her obvious love of Shakespeare and his theater shines through in the warmth of the presentation as well as her meticulous attention to illustrative detail. The many scenes of life in Elizabethan England will be absorbing to children, but some of Aliki's most sensitive work can be seen in her miniature portraits of key historical figures. Quotations from the plays appear throughout the book, in the front matter, in the margins, and as an unofficial epilogue. These short phrases bring Shakespeare's voice to the book, and the text itself demonstrates a good sense of what to include and exclude as it details what is known and surmised about the writer's life. Framing the central story is the tale of Sam Wanamaker (1919-1993), an actor and director whose ambition was to rebuild the Globe. Thus, the book goes beyond Shakespeare himself to introduce the team of people who worked, researched, raised money, and built a replica of the Globe, where performances bring the playwright's words to life in something very like their original setting. Students looking for an introduction to Shakespeare and his playhouse will find this an excellent starting place.

A logically organized and engaging text, plenty of detailed illustrations with informative captions, and a clean design provide a fine introduction to both bard and theater. In addition to her account of Shakespeare's life, Aliki introduces readers to Sam Wanamaker, the American actor and director responsible for the rebuilding of the Globe Theatre in London.

PLB 0-06-027821-8 For Aliki (Marianthe's Story, 1998, etc.), the story of the Globe Theatre is a tale of two men: Shakespeare, who made it famous, and Sam Wanamaker, the driving force behind its modern rebuilding. Decorating margins with verbal and floral garlands, Aliki creates a cascade of landscapes, crowd scenes, diminutive portraits, and sequential views, all done with her trademark warmth and delicacy of line, allowing viewers to glimpse Elizabethan life and theater, historical sites that still stand, and the raising of the new Globe near the ashes of the old. She finishes with a play list, and a generous helping of Shakespearean coinages. Though the level of information doesn't reach that of Diane Stanley's Bard of Avon (1992), this makes a serviceable introduction to Shakespeare's times while creating a link between those times and the present; further tempt young readers for whom the play's the thing with Marcia Williams's Tales From Shakespeare (1998). (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-10)

Gr 3-6-While this is one of the most appealing and responsible biographies of Shakespeare for this audience since Diane Stanley and Peter Vennema's Bard of Avon (Morrow, 1992), it is also a history of the Globe of the 17th century and of the recently completed facsimile of the theater built through the persistent efforts of Sam Wanamaker, an American actor. On the title page, readers see a picture of a boy sitting under a portrait of Shakespeare, constructing a model of the Globe. Sam's story is related in "Act Five" (the book is divided into acts and scenes rather than chapters). With deft economy of words, Aliki covers a broad range of Elizabethan theater history in addition to Shakespeare's life. She sets out the scenes in Stratford and London, and discusses the basics of playhouse building, Marlowe, Jonson, Elizabeth I, James I, principal actors, the plague, and something of the plays without losing focus. Her lively cartoon illustrations, which would pair quite happily with Marcia Williams's Tales from Shakespeare (Candlewick, 1998), blend with more finished framed portraits, maps, playhouse designs, and scenes from London life to expand and explain the spare text, both in picture and caption. Pertinent quotations from the plays are set as grace notes outside the main text. Addenda include a list of plays and poems, sites to visit, and an intriguing sampler of words and expressions found in Shakespeare. A thoroughly enjoyable and reliable introduction to the Bard.-Sally Margolis, Barton Public Library, VT Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.