This delightfully illustrated book will be a welcome addition to the library of any primary school. Michael Rosen’s text is, as always, reader-friendly, and Robert Ingpen’s illustrations, often reminiscent of Breughel’s paintings, bring Shakespeare’s world to bustling life.

Rosen knows well how to capture the young reader. Under the first chapter heading - “A Plot!” - he tells a gripping story: “It’s the middle of the night on the edge of London, a few days after Christmas Day, 1598. The River Thames is frozen over, snow is falling.”

Rosen goes on to relate how Shakespeare and his colleagues secretly dismantle a theatre on the edge of London and carry the timbers across the river to rebuild it as the Globe.

That exciting introduction is followed by equally motivating chapters. “What’s so special about Shakespeare?” - the question is answered with:

“Watching Shakespeare’s plays is like being invited into a house full of amazing rooms.”

Rosen uses Shakespeare’s language to detail what you find in those rooms: a ghost calling for revenge, a rich man yelling at his daughter, trial scenes, battles, assassinations, witches, fairies, a statue that comes to life.

The depiction of Shakespeare’s world is refreshingly free from the Merrie England approach of an earlier generation of children’s books. In Rosen’s words, these are “extraordinary and dangerous times”. He sensitively charts how contemporary violence and political or religious struggles are reflected in the plays.

His style sets pupils thinking: “The characters often discuss what makes a good ruler. What if your ruler were no good? Would it be right to get rid of him or her and put someone else in their place?” On “The Facts” of Shakespeare’s life, the book covers familiar ground in appealing ways. Robert Greene’s complaint about “an upstart crow” is described as sounding “a bit like an older pop star moaning about a younger one for stealing his way of singing, playing too many instruments and being vain!” Rosen is disarmingly honest: “Let’s face it, we don’t really know very much about how Shakespeare spent his childhood and teenage years.”

Nonetheless, the book creates a convincing portrait of what it was like to live in London and work in the theatres of the period. Rosen draws a modern parallel with the birth of the film industry and TV: “New companies, a new way of putting on shows and a desperate need for new scripts.” This is an invaluable introduction to the plays of Shakespeare for young readers.

Rex Gibson is director of the Shakespeare in Schools project