“What’s so special about Shakespeare?” asks the author at the beginning of a graphically engaging account of the bard’s life. Rosen interprets some of what is known about the noted playwright’s life and times. Quotes from the plays and even summaries of some of them are interspersed within a lively narrative printed in varying type sizes. Ingpen’s distinctive pencil and watercolor artwork is everywhere, occasionally commanding an entire double-page spread. A detailed chronology and a bibliography are at the end of this melodramatic amalgamation of information and images designed to attract and keep the attention of young adolescents. (Ages 11–14)