Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #464129 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03-22
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 40 pages

From School Library Journal
Grade 5-8--Coville's knack for making Shakespeare's tales accessible reaches new heights in this prose retelling of the Bard's best-known play. Not only is the text incredibly faithful to the original, but the language that surrounds the quoted dialogue is also amazingly rich. As the author's note explains, all of the elements of a compelling epic are here: "ghosts, murder, madness, and revenge," and Coville gives youngsters the opportunity "to experience Hamlet as story" before exploring the depths of its poetic language and its intensity as a staged drama. His carefully chosen words suit the mood of the haunting tragedy and bring about the desired emotional effect in readers. For instance, the ghost that appears to the soldiers standing guard is described as "a spectral shade whose chill, silent presence struck fear into their hearts." Done predominately in shades of blue and orange, Gore's acrylic-and-pastel artwork underscores the sharp contrast between the protagonist's periods of brooding and his angry outbursts. While the facial features are not particularly distinctive, the mood of the play is reinforced by the overall tone of the illustrations and by the artist's masterful use of shadow. The texture of the paintings, which allows the lines of the figures to both blend into and protrude from their backgrounds, provides a visual sense of Hamlet's indecisiveness. This is a gem for all collections, a surefire way of introducing middle and perhaps even high school scholars to the glories of Shakespeare's genius.--Nancy Menaldi-Scanlan, LaSalle Academy, Providence, RI
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From Booklist
Gr. 4-8. Retelling Hamlet as a coherent story is no mean feat, but this handsome edition achieves it with grace and style. Unlike those retellers who fall into the trap of stringing famous passages together with bridges of stark prose, Coville conveys the mood and movement of the play as well as its characters and plot. The writing includes some Shakespearean language, but incorporates it smoothly into the story. With plenty of white space, a good-size type, and at least one large, shadowy illustration on each double-page spread, this large-format book's design is sophisticated yet accessible to middle-grade children. Gore's sensitive acrylic and pastel artwork, dark and richly atmospheric, suggests the players and the action without defining too much. Like Coville's previous retellings of Shakespeare, this is a fine introduction to a quintessential play. Carolyn Phelan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Unruly Hamlet for middle schoolers
Coville, a veteran writer who notes he has been studying Hamlet for 30 years, makes a coherent narrative from this eternally unruly story, leavening it with direct quotes from Shakespeare's play. Even dialogue, however, is often emended, albeit richly in a modern idiom. Gore wields acrylics and pastels to fine atmospheric effect using a palette of alternating deep blues or burnished browns lightened with white and gold. His figures slip into and out of the foreground like actors on a stage, and the ghost is magnificent. For middle schoolers not quite ready for the real thing, this works.