King of Shadows by Susan Cooper

I adore Cooper's The Dark is Rising series, and I'd swear I've read other stories she's written, though I can't think what right now, but I was really interested to read King of Shadows when I found it in the library, especially when I read the blurb.

Nat Field is an American boy on a trip of a lifetime - as one of a special group of young actors, he is visiting England and preparing to play the part of Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream in the Globe Theatre itself - or at least the reconstructed building.  Whilst in London, however, he comes down with some kind of fever, and when he next wakes he finds himself in 1599.  He is still Nat Field, and still preparing to play the part of Puck - alongside William Shakespeare himself, and Richard Burbage. 


We're taken along on a rather wonderful tour of London, and the world of a young actor in the sixteenth century - we can see, hear, smell it, and practically taste this strange place alongside Nat, and we can feel his worry and his joy at the same time.  I really liked this part of the story, and I thought Cooper brought it wonderfully to life.

The only thing that threw me a little (am I allowed to say this about a book that was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal?) was that I wasn't entirely convinced that the modern Nat Field was American - and I wasn't sure why he needed to be either, unless it was part of the linguistic point made that sixteenth century English may have sounded more like modern-day American that modern-day English (really? I must look that up...), or to emphasise that time is as foreign a place as... as a place can be.  But I didn't feel Nat as American, and that made a difference to my reading.  (To compare, I've started Victory, also by SC, and one of the characters is a young English girl who's just moved to the USA. Her stepbrother and his friend are American - and I feel that they are.  I just didn't feel that Nat was...)

I liked Nat well enough despite this though, and Shakespeare himself (why can't I go back in time and meet him?) and all the players, as well as London-long-past, so much so that finding out why Nat had been sent back in time felt almost like an extra - I just cared that he was there!