I literally stumbled upon this book. I bumped into our cart of discarded books yesterday afternoon and noticed The Boy,The Bear, The Baron, The Bard sitting on top of it. The cover art was great, and our copy was in good shape. I couldn’t figure out why it was discarded. Turns out it wasn’t, it was misplaced on top of the cart. We can’t figure out how, but none of us had heard of this book before. So I read it, and I loved it.

Actually, I didn’t “read” it. There are no words. But it tells the story of a modern boy transported back to Elizabethan England-right in the middle of one of Shakespeare’s afternoon performances. Shakespeare is not happy, so he chases the boy through the streets. The boy’s attempts to escape the Bard lead him to free a circus bear and a baron about to be hanged. They meet the queen on a boat and have a great old time. It’s a very cool and random book with some surprisingly irreverent moments. When the boy and the bear leave London over a bridge together, the disembodied heads on stakes at the top of the bridge (true to history) are looking up at the pesky crows sitting on them. And one of the heads is smiling peacefully. Kind of wicked, I loved it.