Hamlet is Not OK
By (Author) R.A. Spratt
Penguin Random House Australia
Puffin
4th July 2023
Australia
Young Adult
Fiction
Childrens / Teenage fiction: Humorous stories
FIC
Paperback
224
Width 129mm, Height 198mm
Funny, shocking and brilliant- from bestselling author R. A. Spratt, a whip-smart take on Shakespearean moral dilemmas Selby hates homework. She would rather watch TV - anything to escape the tedium of school, her parents' bookshop and small-town busybodies. So Selby didn't plan to read Hamlet. She certainly never planned to meet him. This novel transports Selby, and the reader, into the cold and crime-ridden play itself. Here she meets Hamlet- heavy with grief, the young prince is overthinking and over everything. Selby can relate. But unlike Hamlet, Selby isn't afraid of making decisions. In her world, Selby is used to feeling overlooked. But in the bloody, backstabbing world of Shakespeare, Selby's good conscience and quiet courage might just save some lives . . . hopefully before Hamlet stabs one of her classmates.
R.A. Spratt was born in the UK and lived in Dursley, Gloucestershire - a town immortalised by Harry Potter's deeply unpleasant relatives - until she was two years old. Then, like many ambitious English people cursed with regional accents so strong no other British person can take them seriously, her family moved to Australia. The tedium of growing up in the western suburbs of Sydney was fertiliser to the growth of R.A.'s imagination. The only thing for a kid to do was get on a bicycle and go to the library, so R.A. Spratt did just that. Once there, she read everything, devouring the books of Arthur Ransome, Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl, Robin Klein and Judy Blume, and audiotapes of Shakespeare productions and Sherlock Holmes dramatisations. And so, her young mind was formed, and set on the path of becoming the extraordinary author she is today. Now based in Bowral NSW, she's the bestselling writer of dozens of absurd and witty books including Friday Barnes, The Adventures of Nanny Piggins, The Peski Kids and the Shockingly and Astonishingly Good Stories collections. Her podcast, Bedtime Stories with R. A. Spratt, has had over 2 million downloads and connects R. A. with story-lovers across the globe. For more information, visit raspratt.com