A Question of Will (Out of This World) - Softcover

Lynne Kositsky draws on her experience as a teacher of English and drama in A Question of Will, creating a modern story in pseudo-Elizabethan English. An award-winning poet, she has been making her presence known in children's literature. Her second novel, Rebecca's Flame, has joined Candles as a Canadian Children's Book Centre "Our Choice" Selection.

The author, born in Canada, grew up in England. She returned to Canada in 1969 and now lives in Toronto with her husband and two sheltie puppies, Merlin and Willow.

Gr 6-9-Set in London, this novel begins with Perin Willoughby taking a summer-school course on Shakespeare. On a field trip to the Globe Theatre, she becomes separated from the rest of the class and is sucked through time during an eclipselike occurrence into the bard's world. She meets a colorful, smelly, rambunctious cast of characters and immediately falls for a hot blond, John Pyke. The only problem is that he and everyone else thinks that she's a boy. Willow/Perin is apprenticed to Shakespeare, who is portrayed as being rude, a slob, and a heavy drinker. He swindles his sponsor out of money, lacks the intelligence of an author of his stature, and never writes. Disguised as a boy playing a girl, the witty and resourceful heroine eventually works her way on stage as Juliet. Her speech is filled with slang such as "doggam," which may wear thin with readers, and she switches between comparisons of the present and the Elizabethan era. With the exception of Pyke, the other characters are not fully enough developed for readers to care about them. However, Kositsky does give a sense of the sights, sounds, smells, and people of 16th-century London and addresses the debate over who really wrote Shakespeare's plays. A serviceable introduction to the topic; an afterword provides background.

Lynn Bryant, Great Bridge Middle School, Chesapeake, VA

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