From Publishers Weekly
"Cooper brilliantly weaves past and present together, using London's Globe Theatre as a backdrop, to demonstrate the timelessness of Shakespeare's works and the theater at large," said PW in a boxed review. Ages 10-14. (June)n Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Grade 5-8-Orphan Nat Field is chosen as part of an American theater group to perform at the new Globe Theatre in London. Nat's big role will be Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream. However, his debut is pushed 400 years into the past when he is put to bed with a high fever and wakes up in Elizabethan England. Forced to adapt or be discovered, Nat figures out his situation quickly with judicious questions that result in naturally occurring explanations of the times, the plays, and the theater. The time-travel element is well constructed. Through occasional flashes to the present, readers learn that a boy presumed to be Nat is being treated for bubonic plague. Nat Field has switched places with the infected Nathan Field, who is just about to arrive at the old Globe on loan from another company-thus, thanks to modern medicine, Shakespeare and his plays are saved for the ages. Something in the boy attracts the attention of Will himself and Nat soon becomes his prot?g?. The father/son relationship between the two fills a need for Nat, whose suppressed sorrow at his father's suicide after his mother's death is finally expressed. The circumstances of his father's death and Nat's reluctance to deal with it are hinted at rather clumsily in the beginning of the book and dispatched succinctly when finally addressed, and come off as clearly secondary to the involving theater experiences. Still, Cooper's readers and fans of Gary Blackwood's Shakespeare Stealer (Dutton, 1998) will revel in the hurly-burly of rehearsals and the performance before the queen, the near discoveries, the company rivalries, and some neatly drawn parallels.Sally Margolis, Barton Public Library, VT Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
The heady thrill of acting at Shakespeare's original Globe Theater. The ripe smell of the groundlings crowded in a mob below the stage. The exhilaration of meeting the devoted Queen Elizabeth behind the scenes. Nat Field can barely imagine how that all might feel as he prepares to accompany his director to London to perform A Midsummer Night's Dream at London's modern Globe reproduction theater. Jim Dale, himself a Shakespearean actor, and now familiar to many as the versatile reader of the Harry Potter titles, reads King of Shadows forcefully, with the intensity demanded by a story that employs bubonic plague as a time-travel device to transport a contemporary boy to 1599. Dale's accent, which leans slightly toward a drawl when Nat is speaking, is, nevertheless, predominantly British, and works less effectively for American secondary characters, though superbly for Londoners. T.B. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Kirkus Reviews
When Nat Field, an orphan living with his aunt, is chosen for an all-boy acting troupe traveling to London to perform Shakespeare in the reconstructed Globe Theatre, he hopes it will help him escape from his family's tragedy. Instead he finds himself switched in time with another Nat Field, who carries the Plague. In the past he performs with the Bard himself, who becomes a surrogate father and helps him deal with his sorrow, while preparing to play Oberon to Nat's Puck in a performance before the Queen. Cooper is in top form here; her confident prose, at once muscular and lyrical, vividly conveys the sights, sounds, and smells of Elizabethan London. Most powerful are her descriptions of the story and imaginative staging of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which should have readers scurrying for the original. Her poignant characterization of Nat, whose grief is released by Shakespeare and healed by his words, captures perfectly an adolescent in thrall of the theater, in all its grittiness and grandeur. A dramatic and sensory feast. (Fiction. 10-14) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
"Cooper brilliantly weaves past and present together, using London's Globe Theatre as backdrop, to demonstrate the timelessness of Shakespeare's works and the theater at large." -Publishers Weekly, starred review


Book Description
Only in the world of the theater can Nat Field find an escape from the tragedies that have shadowed his young life. So he is thrilled when he is chosen to join an American drama troupe traveling to London to perform A Midsummer Night's Dream in a new replica of the famous Globe theater. Shortly after arriving in England, Nat goes to bed ill and awakens transported back in time four hundred years -- to another London, and another production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Amid the bustle and excitement of an Elizabethan theatrical production, Nat finds the warm, nurturing father figure missing from his life -- in none other than William Shakespeare himself. Does Nat have to remain trapped in the past forever, or give up the friendship he's so longed for in his own time?


Card catalog description
While in London as part of an all-boy acting company preparing to perform in a replica of the famous Globe Theatre, Nat Field suddenly finds himself transported back to 1599 and performing in the original theater under the tutelage of Shakespeare himself.

ANNOTATION

While in London as part of an all-boy acting company preparing to perform in a replica of the famous Globe Theatre, Nat Field suddenly finds himself transported back to 1599 and performing in the original theater under the tutelage of Shakespeare himself.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Only in the world of the theater can Nat Field find an escape from the tragedies that have shadowed his young life. So he is thrilled when he is chosen to join an American drama troupe traveling to London to perform A Midsummer Night's Dream in a new replica of the famous Globe theater.

Shortly after arriving in England, Nat goes to bed ill and awakens transported back in time four hundred years — to another London, and another production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Amid the bustle and excitement of an Elizabethan theatrical production, Nat finds the warm, nurturing father figure missing from his life — in none other than William Shakespeare himself. Does Nat have to remain trapped in the past forever, or give up the friendship he's so longed for in his own time?

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Cooper (The Dark Is Rising) brilliantly weaves past and present together, using London's Globe Theatre as backdrop, to demonstrate the timelessness of Shakespeare's works and the theater at large. The first segment of the novel, set in the present, details Nathan Field's rehearsals for the part of Puck in an upcoming production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, to be mounted in the newly renovated Globe. He has been chosen, along with a group of other boys from America, to travel to England for the performance. When Nat is suddenly stricken with a serious illness, he awakens to find himself once again cast as Puck at the Globe Theatre, but the year is 1599. Cooper meticulously conveys Nat's impressions of the sights, sounds, smells and textures of Elizabethan England. She is equally adept at evoking the boy's respect and awe for his "new" director, the bard himself. Shakespeare, cast as a wise, intuitive father figure, takes orphaned Nat under his wing. In return, Nat saves the playwright's life by unknowingly changing the natural course of history. Through the boy's relationship with "Will," as Nat calls him, Cooper deftly reveals Nat's unresolved feelings about his own deceased father. The judicious use of quotes from Shakespeare's plays and sonnets will awaken in novices an interest in his works and command respect from seasoned fans. Fascinating details of 16th-century troupe life as well as how costumes, make-up and stage effects were carried out add depth and layers to the depiction of life 400 years ago. An unexpected, appropriately enigmatic ending brings this masterful novel to a close--and brings home the resounding message that the show must go on. Ages 10-14. (Oct.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

KLIATT

To quote from the review of the hardcover edition in KLIATT, November 1999: In Cooper's marvelous book, a young American actor is part of a company of boys selected to perform A Midsummer Night's Dream in a reconstructed Globe theatre in London in 1999. Nat is to play Puck. As we know, in Shakespeare's time only males were allowed on stage, and boys played the female roles—so this company of boy actors is in keeping with the historical reality of Elizabethan theatre. When Nat arrives in London, he starts getting dizzy spells, and then the most incredible thing happens: he is in a time warp that puts him abruptly in 1499 London, in a production of The Dream, with William Shakespeare himself playing Oberon to Nat's Puck. The company is putting on a performance for Queen Elizabeth I, Gloriana herself. Culture shock is only one part of Nat's dilemma; he is drawn emotionally to Shakespeare in a powerful way that brings back all his own pain at losing his poet father to suicide. Shakespeare has lost his own son, Hamnet, who would have been Nat's age, so he too feels a special connection with Nat. Shakespeare gives a sonnet to Nat about the power of love—"that ever-fixed mark"—to survive all separation, even death. This is a sophisticated story, with segments of several Shakespearean plays weaving in and out of the narrative, and great detail about stage direction—both contemporary and historical. Most American readers in this intended age group (grades 5-7) would not yet know much of Shakespeare. One can only hope this novel would be an intriguing introduction. The fantasy itself works exceedingly well. (Cooper is a master of fantasy, after all.) What is quitespecial is her ability to show her readers why actors love the stage, why they love poetry, and how magical the experience of the theatre is, for all concerned, from writers to directors to actors to audience. KLIATT Codes: J*—Exceptional book, recommended for junior high school students. 1999, Simon & Schuster, Aladdin, 186p. 20cm. 98-51127., $4.99. Ages 13 to 15. Reviewer: Claire Rosser; KLIATT , July 2001 (Vol. 35, No. 4)

Library Journal

Gr 5-8-Orphan Nat Field is chosen as part of an American theater group to perform at the new Globe Theatre in London. Nat's big role will be Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream. However, his debut is pushed 400 years into the past when he is put to bed with a high fever and wakes up in Elizabethan England. Forced to adapt or be discovered, Nat figures out his situation quickly with judicious questions that result in naturally occurring explanations of the times, the plays, and the theater. The time-travel element is well constructed. Through occasional flashes to the present, readers learn that a boy presumed to be Nat is being treated for bubonic plague. Nat Field has switched places with the infected Nathan Field, who is just about to arrive at the old Globe on loan from another company-thus, thanks to modern medicine, Shakespeare and his plays are saved for the ages. Something in the boy attracts the attention of Will himself and Nat soon becomes his prot g . The father/son relationship between the two fills a need for Nat, whose suppressed sorrow at his father's suicide after his mother's death is finally expressed. The circumstances of his father's death and Nat's reluctance to deal with it are hinted at rather clumsily in the beginning of the book and dispatched succinctly when finally addressed, and come off as clearly secondary to the involving theater experiences. Still, Cooper's readers and fans of Gary Blackwood's Shakespeare Stealer (Dutton, 1998) will revel in the hurly-burly of rehearsals and the performance before the queen, the near discoveries, the company rivalries, and some neatly drawn parallels.-Sally Margolis, Barton Public Library, VT Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

AudioFile