King of Shadows by Susan Cooper

Usually I don't like the whole genre of kids traveling in time and hanging out with famous people.  I like that it teaches kids abut famous historical people--dude I thought I knew everything there was to know about Paul Revere from that one book I had when I was a kid, the name of which I cannot recall.....Anyway, I get that there are benefits, but in general I don't like it when historical figures get involved (no matter what era the kid hero comes from!) because it's always mildly offensive to me how arbitrary the characterization is--I mean, maybe Paul Revere was a total jerkface in real life, but by gum we're going to make him a kindly gent in order to let these kids interact with him and have a grand old time.  I just don't like messing with the lives and personalities of real people.

HOWEVER, all bets are off when the author is Susan Cooper, it turns out.  

King of Shadows is about this American kid who gets to go to England with a youth acting troupe and perform some Shakespeare plays in the reconstructed Globe theater.  He's recently been orphaned, so he has serious parent/especially father issues.  He falls ill (whilst rehearsing in England) and wakes up to find himself in Elizabethan times!!  He is very coincidentally somehow being mistaken for some kid with his same name who is playing the same role in Midsummer Night's Dream as he has been practicing, and also oh my gosh "Will Shakespeare" is there and will be playing Oberon to our young hero's Puck.  Anyway, he finds acceptance and happiness in olden times and Shakespeare is his new father figure (put your tiny hand in mine) and everything is great, but then of course Oh no sometime he will probably have to return to modern times, dun dun DUN.

So anyway the whole premise is vaguely ridiculous, but somehow I found myself being inexplicably emotionally moved!  It was just really sweet to see the kid finally have a mentor-male-role-model type, and even though I hate it when they do this, it really was kind of awesome to have the basic point of the novel be  "Oh my gosh, Shakespeare has the kindest eyes!  What a tender caring intuitive soul!  Will you be my father figure if I put my tiny hand in yours?"   It's cheesy, it's ridiculous, it has no historical proof--but I was okay with it.  

I was also okay with the fact that she never really even attempted to explain how the time travel/place switching stuff happened--it was almost nice not having to read through some made up rationale for it. Especially because in the end all of that was peripheral-- the main point was a pretty messed-over kid getting some guidance and camaraderie from the most famous writer of the English language.  And that is something we can all get behind.