A Belt Around My Bum

Gr 4–7—This is the second book in the Willy Waggledagger (Shake Speare—get it?) series. Willy is the youngest member of the Black Skulls theatrical troupe, which is traveling to Richmond Palace to perform for Queen Elizabeth I. When the actors spend a night in the forest, they encounter an odd man who claims to be O'Brion, King of the Faeries. He is obsessed with a Golden Girdle that is in the possession of Queen Elizabeth, and he is ready to declare war in order to reclaim it. Fearing that the queen will connect O'Brion with his half brother Yorick, a member of the troupe, the actors coerce Willy into going to the palace to steal the Golden Girdle with the aid of a love potion given to him by O'Brion. Predictably, everything goes wrong, including Queen Elizabeth falling in love with Yorick, and wacky high jinks ensue, accompanied by countless codpiece jokes and potty humor galore, before everything is straightened out again. This story is extremely loosely based on A Midsummer Night's Dream, but don't expect students to learn much about Shakespeare or his plays. Unsophisticated readers will enjoy all the silliness, although they may be puzzled by some of the British slang. Each chapter includes a full-page, black-and-white cartoon. Give this book to readers who enjoyed Andy Griffiths's The Day My Butt Went Psycho (Scholastic, 2003).—Kathleen E. Gruver, Burlington County Library, Westampton, NJ