CBR11 Bingo – Back to School
I read this book in my first semester of high school, in my 9th grade English class. All I really remembered was that it was set in Shakespearian England, and that I really liked it. I apparently liked it so much that the copy on my bookshelf is my actual high school copy. I wasn’t really the thieving type, and I don’t really remember why I didn’t have to return it at the end of the semester, but regardless, here we are – what better book to read for the Back to School bingo square, than a book still stamped that it is the property of my now-closed high school. Go Blue Devils!
Cue for Treason is about a young teenage boy named Peter who, because of an altercation between his honest farming family and the neighbouring corrupt land-owning nobleman, finds himself needing to run away from home. He takes up with a group of travelling actors, meets & befriends another teenage runaway named Kit, and eventually finds himself apprenticing for one Will Shakespeare in London. While living and loving his new life as an actor, he accidentally stumbles upon a plot to murder the Queen. Peter and Kit find themselves thrown into the middle of the Queen’s Secret Service and lend their aid in the attempt to foil this treasonous plot.
I’m pretty sure this novel was an add-on to the freshman Shakespeare curriculum just because it gives some reference to life in England at the time. I enjoyed it in high school, and actually still really enjoyed it at 40 – it’s a great little YA read with characters that you want to root for, and adventure across the English countryside. There’s nothing particularly cutting edge or shocking about it, but it was a fun trip down memory lane this afternoon.