Bard of Avon: The Story of William Shakespeare

by Diane Stanley

Other authorsDiane Stanley (Illustrator)

Hardcover, 1992

Status

Available

Call number

B1564

Publication

HarperCollins (1992), Edition: First edition., 48 pages

Description

A brief biography of the world's most famous playwright, using only historically correct information.

User reviews

LibraryThing member pacifickle

This children's book is an excellent introduction to the biography of William Shakespeare. It gives you basic facts without getting too involved in theory. My favorite new fact is a list of words Shakespeare invented by writing them into his plays. In addition to "eyeball," which I already knew, he

also made up: majestic, countless, hint, hurry, reliance, leapfrog, gust, excellent, and gloomy. Awesome!

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LibraryThing member macfly_17

This book covers as much of Shakepeare's life from childhood until death that is know. There are many great illustrations that supplement the text.

LibraryThing member dg_turner

This is an interesting book about the life of Shakespeare. As the author points out much of what we know about him is pieced together from many different historians points of view. It tells the story of his life from birth to death. It also gives a lot of history about the theatre and acting

companies in England. Especially interesting is the Postscript.

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LibraryThing member petajaye

I thought this was a well done biography of William Shakespeare considering there is so much we don't know about him and his life, I especially enjoyed the inclusion of the history of Elizabethan theatre. The author Diane Stanley was able to enhance the story including details about what is known

of Shakespeare and the period itself. The illustrations were neatly done and appeared to accurately reflect the period.
Further information is added post script regarding Shakespeare's inventive language, creating words of his own to express his ideas or thoughts.

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LibraryThing member momma2

I love how the author is upfront about the difficulty in writing an accurate biography of Shakespeare. She gave us lots of information regardless and even told us of some of the conjecture that exists about Shakespeare. This was as thorough as a biography of Shakespeare for children could be. We

loved the information at the end about words and spelling during that time period and giggled at all ways we have quoted Shakespeare.

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LibraryThing member karenamorg

This biography provides students a very concise introduction to William Shakespeare and the Elizabethan times in which he lived. The reader learns from the first page in the Authors’ Note that much of his life is undocumented and unknown—particularly details about his family. They explain that

they have pieced together his story from facts that are known—information about his life in London, including the circumstances of his writing for a troupe of male actors and his first patrons. Further, there are details about how Shakespeare’s plots weren’t very original but his characters were very developed and entertaining and the plays were filled with truths on the human condition. The differences between Shakespeare’s tragedies, comedies and histories are clearly explained. Readers get a very thorough picture of 16th-17th century English culture, including how Queen Elizabeth was an enthusiastic patron of the theater and how the locals enjoyed attending plays at the Globe. There is a detailed, fascinating Postscript, which refers to words and phrases that Shakespeare invented. Ironically, there is no mention of how he came to be known as the “Bard of Avon.” The illustrations, in muted jewel tones, appear to accurately depict the clothing and décor of the time. Target audience grades 3-5.

Stanley, D., & Vennema, P. (1992). Bard of Avon: The story of William Shakespeare. New York: Morrow Junior Books.

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LibraryThing member radspd

My 10 year old enjoyed the story and pictures in this book. Shakespeare became a real person instead of a vague playwright. The illustrations were full color and quite descriptive. The story was interesting on its own without being too complicated.

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