Bertie Shakespeare Smith! And some fairies. And a cupcake.

So if you like YA even a tiny bit, or if you just like awesome books and don’t care about genre (yay!), you should read ‘Eyes Like Stars’, by Lisa Mantchev.  And when you’re sad because you’ve run out of book, fear not!  It’s a trilogy!  Basically, it’s about a young girl who’s grown up in a magical theatre and hangs out with the fairies from ‘Midsummer’, making trouble and eating pie and eyeing handsome pirates.  And it is filled with delightful literary and theatrical references, and Bertie is just the best.  Ooh, here, from the start of the second book:

“PEASEBLOSSOM
A gloaming peace this evening with it brings
In the countryside where we lay our scene
Toad-ballad accompan’d, crickets sing,
and cupcake crumbs make fairy hands unclean.

An indignant Moth squeaked, “There were cupcakes?!”
― Lisa Mantchev, Perchance to Dream

I promise, it only gets better from there.