Ophelia - by Lisa Klein

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The Lowdown

Experience Hamlet in a completely new way by reading Lisa Klein's Ophelia.  Whether you know and love the Shakespeare play or not, this book is sure to please.  Beginning when Ophelia is just a young  girl, Klein shows us what it was like to grow up at court in Denmark's Elsinore.  Ophelia leaves her father and brother to tend and wait on Queen Gertrude.  While at court, she catches the eye and heart of the young, handsome, dark-haired Prince Hamlet.  They meet in secret and swear their love.  Can this love between them stay strong and keep them grounded, though, as Denmark rots all around them?  When Hamlet learns of his father's death and sees a ghost, he begins to focus on his own mind and not Ophelia.  We all think we know Ophelia.  She went made because her father died.  But that might not be the case...Read to hear this classic story finally from Ophelia's point of view. 

What I Liked

This is a real love story but it's not too overly romantic.  I loved watching the relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia develop and grow.  In the play, you don't get to focus on Ophelia too much because the character of Hamlet always takes center stage.  Here, though, the relationship blossoms before your eyes and you understand what these two characters were like together.  Ophelia is a smart girl, but she deals with many love issues just like kids today.  One night while reading with the Queen, the Queen tells Ophelia,

I think that she must be cruel if she wants to be loved....for once a lady succumbs to the man's desire, he rejects her as unworthy of it.

 Ophelia, hearing this, worries about the love she has shown her Prince.  She questions herself,

Because I showed my love to Hamlet, would his ardor diminish?  Was love like a hunger, easily satisfied by feeding?  Or did it grow by what it fed on?  Should I have withheld my kisses and thus increased his appetite for them?

 This book did a great job just showing what all the characters were going through.  Klein's story is believable and exciting.  I do know a lot about the play, so I also loved seeing lines in the book that I recognized from the play.

Read This If...

You want to hear what Ophelia has to say...finally!

You like classic love stories.

You like historical fiction.

You like making connections to the stuff you read (or have read) in English class!

You want to read a story about a kick-butt girl.

Grade:  A-

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

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I teach Hamlet to my seniors at school, and so I had to read The Story of Edgar Sawtelle so I could see how this wonderful, celebrated book connected to one of my favorite Shakespeare plays.

This book tells the story of a young boy, Edgar, who is mute. He signs to his parents, Gar and Trudy, who live with him on their farm. They breed and train their own breed of dogs simply known as Sawtelle dogs. Gar, Edgar's father, is intrigued by dogs and is trying to create a dog that is a wonderful, attentive, and trained companion. Edgar and his mother help with the dogs and all is well on their farm...until Edgar's uncle, Claude shows up. Claude is mysterious and clearly has problems with Gar, his older brother. Edgar watches and listens, but when his father dies suddenly one night, Edgar's world is turned upside down....he suspects his uncle but doesn't know what to do.

The story that follows is about how Edgar deals with his father's death with the dogs at his side. He observes and makes his own moves.

I really loved this book. It took me a while to get through, but I also really wanted to make sure to give it all the time it deserved. While I was intrigued by the adult characters, I mostly loved being with Edgar and in his mind. I loved thinking as he thought and seeing the world through his eyes. Another perspective I also appreciated and loved was the point of view of Almondine, the Sawtelle's dog. I felt that the author clearly showed what the dog was thinking and feeling.

I think that this book can appeal to YA lovers, because at it's heart, it is a story about a boy and his dogs. It's also a classic Hamlet retelling in which a son seeks to revenge his father's death. If you know Hamlet, you will love this book and enjoy making connections between the two. I hope that some of my students will choose this book when we do our fiction project with Hamlet. We'll see!

The Dead Fathers Club - by Matt Haig

I love Shakespeare and am always interested to read new versions and reimaginings of Shakespeare's classic stories.  The Dead Father's Club is a modern day Hamlet and it was pretty good.  

The main character is a young boy named Philip Noble.  Philip's dad was killed in a single car accident.  Losing a parent is bad enough, but after his father's funeral, Philip is visited by his father's ghost.  Philip's father tells him that he was murdered by Philip's Uncle Alan, and that Philip must murder Alan in order for his father's ghost to move on and escape "the terrors."  The Dead Fathers Club is the story of what Philip decides to do about his Uncle.

One feature of this book that makes it different is the narration.  The book is narrated from Philip's point of view and has no punctuation except for periods at the ends of sentences.  The voice reminded me of The Curious Incident of the Dog at Night Time.  

I enjoyed this version of the Hamlet story, but at times, I lost interest.  I didn't get overly angry with characters or emotionally moved to feel for them much, even Philip, who is the main victim in the story.  The way he contemplates what he has to do is very different than the real Hamlet (who is in his twenties).  I just didn't get into this book that much.  I would recommend it to people who know the Hamlet story and who want to read a new version of the tale.  If you liked Curious Incident, you might also like the voice in this book.

Grade:  C