Saturday, July 4, 2015

Srsly Hamlet adaption by Courtney Carbone –ESSENTIAL

Carbone, Courtney (adaptor) Srsly Hamlet 101 pages, Random House, 2015. $9.99 Content: Language: PG (0 technical swears, lots of emoticon versions); Mature Content: PG Violence: PG
Hamlet had already suspected that his father, the king, was killed by his Uncle. The Uncle who is now King and married his mother. Come to that, he is quite upset with his mother as well, how could she marry so early. Things start to spiral out of control when he meets his father’s ghost has confirmation of his suspicions, now he has an unusual path to revenge, that doesn’t turn out quite as he hoped.
My dream versions of Shakespeare are now come to life thanks to this talented author. Told in text message and note format this re-telling, like those in the series, are hilarious, interesting and best of all, easy for this current generation to relate to. While educators will see this as a sort of cliffs notes variation, I think it’s a great introduction to a complex piece of challenging text. I would use this as a fun opener and refer to it when students find themselves confused. I had so much fun reading this, and who knows it might just be a great gateway for teens to really exploring the full works of Shakespeare and becoming lifelong fans. Due to the excessive use of the “poo/shit” emoticon, I would probably restrict this to 6th grade and higher, though admittedly there is no explicit swearing, I worry about the maturity level in regards to that. Buy the whole series, srsly.

MS, HS  –ESSENTIAL Reviewer: Stephanie Elementary School Librarian & Author.

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