Young Nat Field travels with a Shakespearean acting troupe from the United States to London to play the role of Puck in a performance of Midsummer Night’s Dream at the newly recreated Globe Theatre. Almost as soon as he arrives in London, Nat begins feeling strange, a condition diagnosed, much to everyone’s surprise, as the Bubonic Plague. But it isn’t really Nat lying in the hospital bed in London, for Nat has somehow slipped through 400 years of time and finds himself playing the same role in the same play in the original Globe Theater back in 1599, opposite the Bard himself. Cooper’s compelling fantasy is filled with details of Shakespeare’s time, as seen through the eyes of a late 20th century boy. Fatherless Nat’s growing relationship with “Will” Shakespeare, who has lost his only son, is is made credible given the circumstances of time and place, as well as the psychological needs of both characters. (Ages 12 and older)

Only in the world of the theater can Nat Field find an escape from the tragedies that have shadowed his young life. So he is thrilled when he is chosen to join an American drama troupe traveling to London to perform A Midsummer Night's Dream in a new replica of the famous Globe theater.
Shortly after arriving in England, Nat goes to bed ill and awakens transported back in time four hundred years -- to another London, and another production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Amid the bustle and excitement of an Elizabethan theatrical production, Nat finds the warm, nurturing father figure missing from his life -- in none other than William Shakespeare himself. Does Nat have to remain trapped in the past forever, or give up the friendship he's so longed for in his own time?