Book of the Week:
William Shakespeare's Hamlet retel. by Bruce Coville, illus. by Leonid Gore

From SLJ February 2004 (Starred Review)

Nancy Menaldi-Scanlan, LaSalle Academy, Providence, RI -- School Library Journal, 1/26/2004

COVILLE, Bruce, retel. William Shakespeare's Hamlet. illus. by Leonid Gore. unpaged. CIP. Dial. Mar. 2004. RTE $16.99. ISBN 0-8037-2708-9. LC 2002013743.

Gr 5-10-Coville's knack for making Shakespeare's tales accessible reaches new heights in this prose retelling of the Bard's best-known play. Not only is the text incredibly faithful to the original, but the language that surrounds the quoted dialogue is also amazingly rich. As the author's note explains, all of the elements of a compelling epic are here: "ghosts, murder, madness, and revenge," and Coville gives youngsters the opportunity "to experience Hamlet as story" before exploring the depths of its poetic language and its intensity as a staged drama. His carefully chosen words suit the mood of the haunting tragedy and bring about the desired emotional effect in readers. For instance, the ghost that appears to the soldiers standing guard is described as "a spectral shade whose chill, silent presence struck fear into their hearts." Done predominately in shades of blue and orange, Gore's acrylic-and-pastel artwork underscores the sharp contrast between the protagonist's periods of brooding and his angry outbursts. While the facial features are not particularly distinctive, the mood of the play is reinforced by the overall tone of the illustrations and by the artist's masterful use of shadow. The texture of the paintings, which allows the lines of the figures to both blend into and protrude from their backgrounds, provides a visual sense of Hamlet's indecisiveness. This is a gem for all collections, a surefire way of introducing middle and perhaps even high school scholars to the glories of Shakespeare's genius.