Homeschool Librarian

Lexile/Reading Level
Recommended for Grades 7-12

Genre/Category
Literature | Nonfiction

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Shakespeare Book, Big Ideas Simply Explained

Author:

Packed with witty illustrations, clear graphics, and inspirational quotes, The Shakespeare Book is the perfect primer to the works of William Shakespeare. Every work is covered, from the comedies of Twelfth Night and As You Like It to the tragedies of Julius Caesar and Hamlet. With detailed plot summaries and a full analysis of the major characters and themes, this is a brilliant, innovative exploration of the entire canon of Shakespeare plays, sonnets, and other poetry.

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Please note: Our posting a book in our Homeschool Librarian database does not mean that we endorse its contents. Please use your own discretion when selecting books for your child to read. Also, we are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Purchases made through our affiliate links help support this site. Book descriptions are sourced from either Amazon.com or GoodReads.
Lexile/Reading Level
Recommended for 9-12 Grade & Adult

Genre/Category
Fiction | Historical

Historical Time Period
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Banished Heart, The

Author:

For Paul Hoffmann, a Jewish student at the University of Berlin, life would be sweet if he could write poetry and, of course, graduate. But since the year is 1933, his life is about to take a very different turn — one that leads him back to Elizabethan England, where his idol, William Shakespeare, is having a crisis of his own. Shakespeare’s theatre company expects him to write an anti-Jewish play that will incite the public against Dr. Rodrigo Lopez, a crypto-Jew accused of planning to poison Queen Elizabeth. But there is a problem: Shakespeare knows that Lopez is innocent.

Will Shakespeare remain loyal to the truth and his friends in London’s crypto-Jewish community or sacrifice Dr. Lopez to further his own career? As Shakespeare struggles over his rewrites of the play that will be known as “The Merchant of Venice,” questions are raised for Paul Hoffmann, as well: in a world where he can no longer be a German, can he find the courage to rewrite the “script” and be, first and last, a Jew?

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Please note: Our posting a book in our Homeschool Librarian database does not mean that we endorse its contents. Please use your own discretion when selecting books for your child to read. Also, we are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Purchases made through our affiliate links help support this site. Book descriptions are sourced from either Amazon.com or GoodReads.
Lexile/Reading Level
840L

Genre/Category
Adventure | Fiction | Historical

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Shakespeare Stealer (The Shakespeare Stealer #1)

Author: Part of a Series:

Widge is an orphan with a rare talent for shorthand. His fearsome master has just one demand: steal Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet”–or else. Widge has no choice but to follow orders, so he works his way into the heart of the Globe Theatre, where Shakespeare’s players perform. As full of twists and turns as a London alleyway, this entertaining novel is rich in period details, colorful characters, villainy, and drama.”A fast-moving historical novel that introduces an important era with casual familiarity.” –School Library Journal, starred review
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Borrow from Open Library

Please note: Our posting a book in our Homeschool Librarian database does not mean that we endorse its contents. Please use your own discretion when selecting books for your child to read. Also, we are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Purchases made through our affiliate links help support this site. Book descriptions are sourced from either Amazon.com or GoodReads.
Lexile/Reading Level
1060L

Genre/Category
Biographies | Literature - Poetry | Nonfiction | Picture Books

Historical Time Period
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Topic
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Format

Shakespeare His Work & His World

The Bard’s enduring genius is both explained and explored for young readers—a perfect companion for both students and teachers of Shakespeare.

Tongue-tied. Dull as dishwater. Without rhyme or reason. Leapfrog. Excellent. Gloomy. These words and phrases, so much a part of our daily language, were coined by William Shakespeare more than four hundred years ago. In what other ways has Shakespeare shaped and influenced our words and culture? Find out with Michael Rosen’s fascinating exploration of the enduring genius of the greatest playwright in the English language, SHAKESPEARE: HIS WORK AND HIS WORLD. Learn what theatre was like when Shakespeare created and acted in his plays. With dramatic illustrations by Robert Ingpen, the fluid text is sprinkled with Shakespearean quotations to re-create the Bard’s world of kings and queens, fairies and potions, and bloody beheadings. This sweeping account is a biography, a history, and a retelling of some of Shakespeare’s most famous plays—all in one approachable volume.

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Please note: Our posting a book in our Homeschool Librarian database does not mean that we endorse its contents. Please use your own discretion when selecting books for your child to read. Also, we are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Purchases made through our affiliate links help support this site. Book descriptions are sourced from either Amazon.com or GoodReads.
Lexile/Reading Level
930L Recommended for 2-6 Grade

Genre/Category
Fiction | Historical

Historical Time Period
| | Date
Topic
Geographic Region
| Main Character
Format

Shakespeare’s Quill (Stories of Great People)

Author: Part of a Series:

Local merchants in a busy street market tell the story of SHAKESPEARES QUILL. This book tells the factual biography of the great William Shakespeare within a fictional storyline.

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Please note: Our posting a book in our Homeschool Librarian database does not mean that we endorse its contents. Please use your own discretion when selecting books for your child to read. Also, we are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Purchases made through our affiliate links help support this site. Book descriptions are sourced from either Amazon.com or GoodReads.
Lexile/Reading Level
990L

Genre/Category
Fiction | Historical | Mystery

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Wicked Will: A Mystery of Young William Shakespeare

To the outside world, Tom Pryne is an orphan traveling Elizabethan England with his uncle’s theater troupe. In actuality, “Tom” is Viola, in disguise because her parents’ Catholic sympathies have put them at odds with the law and forced them into hiding. When the actors arrive in the sleepy little town of Stratford-on-Avon, Viola’s uncle is arrested for murder, and she joins forces with Will Shakespeare, a local boy with a penchant for trouble and a smart turn of phrase, to uncover the real culprit.

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Please note: Our posting a book in our Homeschool Librarian database does not mean that we endorse its contents. Please use your own discretion when selecting books for your child to read. Also, we are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Purchases made through our affiliate links help support this site. Book descriptions are sourced from either Amazon.com or GoodReads.
Lexile/Reading Level
Recommended for 4-7 Grades

Genre/Category
Classics | Fiction | Historical

Historical Time Period
Date
Topic
| Geographic Region
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Format

Richard III (Shakespeare for Everyone)

Part of a Series:

This handsomely illustrated series presents Shakespeare in such a lively and accessible manner that students and young readers will find themselves wishing to read all his plays. Readers learn to enjoy these immortal works as they follow the story, get to know the characters, and explore the historical background of each play. Packed with color illustrations and portraits of the main characters, and enhanced with quotations, these are eye-opening introductions for students as well as valuable tools for teachers.

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Please note: Our posting a book in our Homeschool Librarian database does not mean that we endorse its contents. Please use your own discretion when selecting books for your child to read. Also, we are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Purchases made through our affiliate links help support this site. Book descriptions are sourced from either Amazon.com or GoodReads.
Lexile/Reading Level
GN330L

Genre/Category
Classics | Fantasy | Fiction | Graphic Novel-Comics

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Macbeth the Graphic Novel

Witches, murder, ghosts, and madness — one of Shakespeare’s finest tragedies is also a perfect fit for the graphic novel format. This compelling adaptation depicts every blood-curdling scene in easy-to-follow illustrations, accompanied by Shakespeare’s original text. An illustrated cast of characters reminds readers who’s who, and fascinating background information on Shakespeare and the real Macbeth adds historical context.

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Please note: Our posting a book in our Homeschool Librarian database does not mean that we endorse its contents. Please use your own discretion when selecting books for your child to read. Also, we are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Purchases made through our affiliate links help support this site. Book descriptions are sourced from either Amazon.com or GoodReads.
Lexile/Reading Level
300L

Genre/Category
Adventure | Fantasy | Fiction | Historical

Historical Time Period
Date
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Format
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Stage Fright on a Summer Night (Magic Tree House #25)

Author: Part of a Series:

The show must go on!

That’s what Jack and Annie learn when the Magic Tree House whisks them back to Elizabethan England. There they meet William Shakespeare himself—one of the greatest writers of all time! But Mr. Shakespeare’s having a hard time with some of the actors in his latest show. Are Jack and Annie ready to make a big entrance? Or will it be curtains for Shakespeare?

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Please note: Our posting a book in our Homeschool Librarian database does not mean that we endorse its contents. Please use your own discretion when selecting books for your child to read. Also, we are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Purchases made through our affiliate links help support this site. Book descriptions are sourced from either Amazon.com or GoodReads.
Lexile/Reading Level
910L

Genre/Category
Literature | Nonfiction

Historical Time Period
Date
| Topic
| | Geographic Region
| Main Character
Format

Terry Deary’s Best Ever Shakespeare Tales

Author:

TERRY DEARY’S BEST EVER SHAKESPEARE TALES tells you more than just what happens in everyone’s favourite Shakespeare plays – it tells you the stories behind them. Find out about: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Lear, Twelfth Night, The Tempest, The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, The Taming of the Shrew, Macbeth and Hamlet. From how the plays were originally staged to what Shakespeare himself might have thought of his work being taught in schools – there’s so much to find out.

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Please note: Our posting a book in our Homeschool Librarian database does not mean that we endorse its contents. Please use your own discretion when selecting books for your child to read. Also, we are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Purchases made through our affiliate links help support this site. Book descriptions are sourced from either Amazon.com or GoodReads.