[.ca] Hamlet (ISBN 0803727089)

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.