The Shakespeare Timeline Wallbook

This foldout book expands to create a six-foot-long removable timeline of Shakespeare’s life, featuring panels devoted to his plays. Cartoon figures, drawn in a clear-line style, appear in key dramatic scenes, accompanied by quotations and summaries that readers can examine through an included magnification sheet (on its own, the font used for the recaps and context is almost comically small). Supplementing the timeline and its miniature theatrical stagings is the “Wallbook Chronicle,” which is designed to look like a broadsheet newspaper filled with fictitious Shakespeare-related stories (“Stars crossed as West Side lovers take a tragic turn,” reads the headline for a faux review of West Side Story). A selection of sonnets, letters to the editor from across the centuries, and a quiz round out this engaging resource for readers just getting to know Shakespeare and his work. Ages 6–14. (Apr.)