Teodora's Blog

At one point in our life everybody needs to read some of Shakespeare’s most famous and greatest plays. His original stories, though, can sometimes be difficult to be understood by young readers especially. But recently I’ve come across a delightful selection of 20 plays by Shakespeare, which is exactly what children of all ages need. The collection includes the following plays: A Midsummer Night’s Dream , All’s Well That Ends Well , Antony and Cleopatra , As You Like It , Cymbeline , Hamlet , Julius Caesar , King Lear , Much Ado About Nothing , Othello , Romeo and Juliet , The Comedy of Errors , The Merchant of Venice , The Taming of the Shrew , The Tempest , The Tragedy of Macbeth , The Two Gentlemen of Verona , The Winter’s Tale , Timon of Athens and Twelfth Night . Each book has a short summary on the back cover, which is really useful because children can find out what the plot is about. At the beginning of every single play, the main characters are shortly described, giving t...

I’m going to start off by saying that Apley Towers is a brilliantly satisfying collection of books about the importance of life and friendship. Some people might think that these books are only about horses or riding lessons. It’s true that the action takes place at Apley Towers, a riding school in South Africa, but in my opinion, the setting doesn’t matter that much. Each story brings out a different situation that can happen to anyone, anywhere. Apley Towers is born when Wendy Oberon, an ordinary English woman, moves from England to South Africa to accomplish her dream of setting up her own riding school: “ She could see it as though it already existed: a paddock for grazing, three riding rings, a tack room and, in the distance, her own little house nestled amongst the giant oak trees. It would be her own little paradise, concealed from the world. She could imagine life and laughter in this place. She could imagine a second chance at happiness. ” (page 6, fragment from the p...

I’ve always wondered what it’s like to have a twin brother or sister. Is it unusual to live with someone who looks just like you? Do you get along with your twin or do you end up having a lot of fights? Is it the same as having a younger or an older sibling? All these questions have remained unanswered until I read the Totally Twins Collection and entered the exciting world of Persephone Pinchgut, a 10-year-old girl who knows exactly what it’s like to share the same adventures with another version of herself. The reason why Persephone starts to write a secret diary is because she needs to hide her personal thoughts from Portia, her twin sister. Persephone and Portia are two interesting characters. They’re named after the Goddess of the Underworld (Persephone) and the heroine of The Merchant of Venice , one of Shakespeare’s plays (Portia). They have the same sunshine-and-honey hair with soft curls at the back, the same crystal-green cat’s eyes and the same pointy elbows and skinny ...