A review by mynameiskate
Shakespeare's Secret by Elise Broach

4.0

This was left in our Little Free Library and I thought it looked like a great book for middle school kids. So I checked it out and blew through it in an evening. I've always been interested in the idea that maybe Shakespeare wasn't written by Shakespeare. This book takes that idea and weaves a fun personal mystery around it.

I very much enjoyed the main character, Hero - she is named after one of Shakespeare's characters in Much Ado About Nothing. She's about to enter 6th grade, a bit of a nerd and always being teased about her name. She's a little sullen, but not intolerably so - something I find with so many pre-teen and teen protagonists. There's a young male character who figures prominently, but not as (specifically) a love interest which is great - I think we need more books where girls & boys, women & men just interact and everyone isn't always falling in love or worrying about "OMG, does he LIKE me?!"

There is also an older woman who acts as a mentor to Hero - I really enjoyed her character as well. A good role model, has a lot of personality and is a genuine character in her own right, not just a foil for Hero and the main story.

Good stuff - if you have young readers, definitely check it out!