I’m pleased to have Barbara Dee on the blog today with a guest post to kick-off the Star-Crossed blog tour. Read on to find out more about the book and Barbara’s top five reasons to read Shakespeare.
About the Book:
Mattie is chosen to play Romeo opposite her crush in the eighth grade production of Shakespeare’s most beloved play in this Romeo and Juliet inspired novel from the author of Truth or Dare.
Mattie, a star student and passionate reader, is delighted when her English teacher announces the eighth grade will be staging Romeo and Juliet. And she is even more excited when, after a series of events, she finds herself playing Romeo, opposite Gemma Braithwaite’s Juliet. Gemma, the new girl at school, is brilliant, pretty, outgoing—and, if all that wasn’t enough: British.
As the cast prepares for opening night, Mattie finds herself growing increasingly attracted to Gemma and confused, since, just days before, she had found herself crushing on a boy named Elijah. Is it possible to have a crush on both boys AND girls? If that wasn’t enough to deal with, things backstage at the production are starting to rival any Shakespearean drama! In this sweet and funny look at the complicated nature of middle school romance, Mattie learns how to be the lead player in her own life.
Guest Post:
Top 5 reasons why people should read Shakespeare
- No writer is funnier. And it’s not just the “comic relief” characters like the Nurse in Romeo & Juliet. When Hamlet tells Horatio “Thrift, thrift…The funeral baked meats/Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables”–Mom was so cheap she used leftovers from Dad’s funeral for her wedding feast–that’s just hilariously snarky. Even Shakespeare’s great tragedies are full of wit.
- No one has ever written better insults. I had a blast collecting some of the best for Tessa in STAR-CROSSED–“puke-stocking,” “mildewed ear,” “foul undigested lump,” to name just a few.
- He invented modern English! Words we say all the time–moonbeam, rant, eyeball, gloomy, elbow, zany, majestic, gossip, buzzer, excitement, bloodstained, bump, luggage, bet, bedroom, advertising–Shakespeare just made up! Over 1700 words! That’s crazy, when you think about it.
- If it’s a human emotion, he wrote about it. If you’re a human being, you’re already there, in his words.
- He’s completely current. His plays tackle front-page issues like sex, racism, gender roles, the abuse of power, and violence. And it’s actually pretty comforting to see that we haven’t invented these problems over the past year.
About the Author:
Barbara Dee is the author of seven middle grade novels all published by Simon & Schuster, including TRUTH OR DARE (Sept. 2016) and STAR-CROSSED (March 2017). Her next middle grade novel, HALFWAY NORMAL, will publish September 5, 2017. Barbara is one of the founders and directors of the Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival. She lives with her family in Westchester County, New York.
Giveaway:
This tour has a giveaway for one signed copy of STAR-CROSSED, USA only
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brittany marie thompson
My tweet entry messed up here is the link to my tweet : https://twitter.com/f150dudem/status/869027884823965697
Samantha Martin
This is so awesome!!