Cassidy wrote this book because she wanted to help everyone understand Shakespeare. She started to get interested in Shakespeare's plays when she was seven. Although the language could be hard to understand in the beginning because of the time period the plays were written, the stories are timeless. Cassidy's goal of writing this book is to lay out the story line for people who are not familiar with Shakespeare's plays so when they go see the plays, they will understand everything that's happening in the play. She chose to retell Shakespeare's tragedies because she liked the complicated plots of these plays and the way Shakespeare kept her in suspense. She couldn't wait to find out who got into trouble this time. The five plays she retold are Macbeth, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and Othello. She organized this book into three parts: the retelling of the five Shakespeare tragedies, the sonnets and poems, and the riddles. She hopes you'll enjoy this book and will start to enjoy Shakespeare's plays too