10


Ballet Shoes Noel Streatfeild, Puffin, 978-0-1413-5980-9, £6.99 pbk Amid current concerns that the performing arts are becoming the preserve of those with private incomes, this tale of three orphans who have every intention of earning their living on the stage is encouraging until you remember that it’s 80 years old next year. The daily grind of training at Madame Fidolia’s Academy bears fruit when the two eldest Fossil girls are cast in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and learn to fly on wires (Petrova would rather fly planes, and eventually does). This is an all-round top ten book for me because it sparks joy, in the way that theatre does.


The Swish of the Curtain Pamela Brown, Longwater Books, 978-0-9552-4280-9 £10 pbk Another classic, published in 1941 when following the dream was rarely an option. The first book in the Blue Door Theatre series sees theatre-mad teens following their dream of renovating a derelict theatre without concern for crowdfunding or health and safety. Full of ‘just do it’ spirit with an ensemble cast of engagingly flawed characters, this is a stirring and good-humoured quest narrative packed with obstacles to be overcome.


Withering Tights: the Misadventures


Mr William Shakespeare’s Plays


978-1-4063-2334-4


Bravo, Mr William Shakespeare! 978-1-4063-2335-1 Marcia Williams, Walker Books, £6.99 each


Set in the original Globe theatre with additional dialogue from the groundlings, these editions in Williams’s comic strip style are perfect for introducing young children to the plays while sharing the excitement of live performance.


William Shakespeare: Scenes from the life of the


world’s greatest writer Mick Manning and Brita Granström, Frances Lincoln Children’s Books, 978-1-8478-0345-0, £12.99 hbk


of Talullah Casey Louise Rennison, HarperCollins Children’s Books, 978-0-0071-5682-5, £6.99 pbk


The creator of Georgia Nicolson pokes fun at the more precious and obsessive aspects of stage school training, as townie Talullah follows her dream all the way to a stern moorland institution, Dother Hall. The sequels are called A Midsummer Tights Dream and The Taming of the Tights, and they are all wet-yourself funny in Rennison’s tradition.


A fun and informative curtain-raiser for early encounters with the plays, this stands out amid new books about Shakespeare’s world and work published ahead of the 400th anniversary of his death. With help from the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Manning and Granström, a diehard information-book double act, are clear throughout about what we know about Shakespeare’s life (very little) and what we can reasonably imagine. The unreasonable imagination and genius of the man himself is lavishly celebrated in the context of the turbulent political life of his time and the place of the theatre in Elizabeth I’s England. The most famous plays receive appetising graphic treatments with the Bard’s words in speech bubbles.


Geraldine Brennan is a journalist specialising in children’s books and education, regularly reviews for the Observer and has judged several literary awards.


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