Author(s): R.A. Spratt

Middle Readers

Selby didn’t plan to read Hamlet. She certainly never planned to meet him.

Selby Michaels is totally busted. Her parents found out she hasn’t read any books for her English class – not ever! Which was particularly upsetting to them since her parents run the local bookshop. They sentence Selby to hard labour – working with a tutor to try and catch up. And that tutor is Dan – her nerdy older brother’s super-nerd friend. It’s so painful. Dan doesn’t just force Selby to read Hamlet. He forces her to read it out loud. But something is magical in the bookstore. When Selby begins to read, she and Dan are drawn down through the words and into the play itself. They become characters in the famous story of betrayal, revenge and grief. And while Prince Hamlet himself is heartbroken and indecisive, Selby's quiet courage inspires her to try the unthinkable: she attempts to save the lives of the characters who die in the play. But when she 'rescues' Hamlet by bringing him with her into the twenty-first century, Selby realises that fixing this tragedy is not going to be as easy as she thought. Now she needs to figure out a way to save everyone’s lives without destroying half of the English literary canon . . . and before Hamlet stabs one of her classmates.

Equal parts funny, shocking, clever and thought-provoking, Hamlet is Not OK is a unique story where Shakespearean moral dilemmas meet the contemporary teenage experience from the bestselling author of Friday Barnes.