Selby hasn’t done any homework for months. She’s at high school and hasn’t read any set school text for two years. Does this worry her. Nah, she’s not bothered at all. Until…

Her parents come home from a parent-teacher evening and they are bristling with rage. They thought she was coming home to do her homework while they were trudging through the yearly stocktake at their family bookstore. Little did they know, Selby was actually watching her favourite TV shows, eating what she liked for dinner and completely ignoring anything to do with school.

Every distraction is banned. No TV, no computer, no music. Dad orders a new routine for his daughter. School, shop, homework, dinner, study, bed. And it will begin with a new tutor to help her catch up on her classes. The tutor turns out to be a brainiac friend of Selby’s big brother, and she groans at the thought. Especially when Dan begins with the boring book she is studying in English – Hamlet.

Selby claims she can’t understand a word of this guy Shakespeare, but Dan insists, then tells her to read out loud. The shame of it! Shelby begins to read and Dan nods his encouragement. She’s surprised. It’s not so bad reading aloud after all. It’s even… WHACK!

They wake on cold, stone battlements in the dark. Figures approach them, and to their horror they realise they are in 16th Century Denmark. One of the men in front of them is Hamlet himself.

Dan is an expert on all things Shakespeare, so is the perfect guide in this strange adventure. He knows what to expect as they seem to drift from one scene in the play to the next.

But Shelby is shocked by what she hears. There is talk of murder. Lack of respect for a mother and a girlfriend enrages her and experiencing Hamlet’s madness is hard to watch. She refuses to let the coming events play out as Dan describes them, and she does everything she can to save lives – even if they are only fictional.

Changing a play as influential to the world is tricky however. She must tread carefully in the past to protect the world’s literary future.

Knowing only the basics about Hamlet, I went into this story nearly as blind as Shelby did. Hamlet Is Not Okay begins as a light teen read (Shelby is 15), but steadily becomes more substantial as Shelby learns the world of Hamlet. There are problems to solve, lives to save and parents to keep happy, all while skipping back and forth through a portal between the present and the 16th Century.

This might be based around a dire Shakespearean play full of murder, madness and ghosts, but this novel by the author of the Nanny Piggins and Friday Barnes’ books, is also sharp-witted and funny.

Shelby’s ignorance of anything Shakespeare brings a fresh teen perspective on the behaviour of the characters and their actions to one another. No-nonsense Shelby is determined to sort them all out and does so brilliantly without too much upheaval for the future.  

I particularly enjoyed a mention of a classic I do love and know well – Pride and Prejudice.

A clever, entertaining read, which may just help High School students as an introduction to Hamlet (the play) itself.

Author – R A Spratt

Age – 12+

(2023, Penguin, Hamlet, Shakespeare, Homework, English Study, Play, School, Tutor, Time Travel, Murder, Depression, Girlfriend, Ophelia, Funny, Family, Bookshop, Literature, Classic Remaking, Historical, Ghost, King & Queen, Grief)