Shakespeare's Secret

Broach, E. (2005). Shakespeare’s secret. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Co. 

What a delightful book! I don’t care if it is written from the point-of-view of a sixth grader, I’m going to suggest this one to some of my high school students. Because I’m an English and Theatre teacher and a self-proclaimed “nerdy girl,” (It’s a thing…we have t-shirts…) I’m fascinated by Shakespeare and am interested in, though not convinced by, the notion that his plays were not actually written by the man from Stratford…an underlying concept in this well-written, fast-paced piece of realistic fiction. Broach’s writing style that incorporates intelligent, realistic dialogue and a number of fun allusions to history and literature is enjoyable and easy to read, and her sympathetic, dynamic characters change and grow during the course of the story. 

Our protagonist is a 12-year-old girl named Hero Netherfield whose father is a Shakespeare scholar and has just moved his family (Hero, her 8th grade sister Beatrice, and their mother) to a town outside to Washington, DC for a new job. Hero, as any budding adolescent, is struggling to figure out who she is, and she often bemoans her unusual, though fitting, Shakespearean name. If you’re familiar with the play Much Ado About Nothing, the two major female characters are named Beatrice and Hero. As a side note, the family's last name of Netherfield was not lost on me either as the name of the house that Mr. Bingley leases in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

The suspenseful progressive plot opens as Hero starts a new school year and befriends the family’s kindly next door neighbor Mrs. Roth. Mrs. Roth, as it turns out, was extremely close to the couple who owned the house in which Hero’s family now lives, the Murphys. When Mrs. Murphy passed away, Mr. Murphy gave her (Mrs. Roth) his wife’s very special antique necklace, believed to date back to the Elizabethan age in England and possibly even earlier to Elizabeth’s mother Anne Boleyn, to Mrs. Roth, but it’s missing a very important jewel…the center stone…the huge diamond came to be known as the “Murphy Diamond.” The diamond had been reported missing by Mr. Murphy years before, but many, including Mrs. Roth and soon Hero and her new friend, handsome 8th grader Danny Cordova, believe that the diamond is hidden somewhere in Hero’s family’s house. Thus begins the search…as with any mystery tale worth its salt, Shakespeare’s Secret is about more than finding a diamond, it’s about people discovering their identities. Who is Hero? Who is Danny? Who is Mrs. Roth? Who was Shakespeare, really?

So why would Shakespeare's Secret be popular with its target middle school age group? Why can it be classified as realistic fiction? The answers to the two questions are essentially one in the same. Hero is just...real. She’s a normal 6th grade kid. She’s insecure, especially because she’s beginning yet another year in yet another new school. The kids in her school are realistically unkind and thoughtless…as Abilene would say in Moon Over Manifest, “It’s a universal” (Vanderpool, 2010). Fortunately, Hero discovers what so many kids yearn for: a supportive adult who treats her as a legitimate, intelligent person; Mrs. Roth doesn’t talk down to her or treat her or Danny like a child. All three are conspirators in an exciting diversion to their otherwise humdrum lives. Kids can identify with these characters, but they can also find that diversion as they read about a slightly more exciting version of what they live daily. This book is realistic but incorporates an element of the extraordinary, in this case, the promise of the mysterious Murphy Diamond and the discovery of the mysteries it holds…the possible connection to Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth I, Edward De Vere, and…Shakespeare? There’s also an added twist at the novel’s conclusion that brings the question of an adolescent’s true identity to light, but I don’t want to ruin it for readers!

BIG QUESTIONS: What is your identity? Who are you? Who will you become? What mysteries exist in your life that you yearn to solve? What will history say about you? 

*Note: Since Google Chrome, the apparently required platform for Blogger, is being a pain in the derriere, I can't get the images I'd like to do what I'd like.  Therefore, the pictures of Anne Boleyn, Queen Elizabeth I, and Edward de Vere are regrettably absent.  Also, the font of this post is not consistent with my other posts...another element that seems to be unavoidable (or I just have other things to do with my life and don't want to spend yet another hour of my vacation trying to fix the problem...my apologies).

Works Cited 

Vanderpool, C. (2010). Moon over manifest. New York, NY: Delacorte Press