This is part of the Hogarth Shakespeare series where different authors take on retellings of Shakespeare, presumably to make it more accessible.

In “New Boy” it is Othello that is under the spotlight – Tracy Chevalier moves the action to a school playground and sets it over a single day – the narrative of the play transitions really well to this environment, closed and clique – New Boy “O” arrives at an all white school and meets “Dee” – friendships form, relationships develop then one jealous and destructive lad shatters everything.

I enjoyed this – the author brings a sense of atmosphere, a special kind of tension to the storytelling, if you know the play you’ll know things are not going to end well, if you don’t then you’ll find it utterly gripping. This is not a straightforward plot redevelop, nuances are added to fit in with the setting, the language used is cleverly insightful, casual racism, playground politics all used to great effect.

The claustrophobic school setting makes this work – this is the first of these I have read but if the other authors tackle it as well I’d like to read the others. As a Shakespeare fan I loved seeing this pan out, it was intriguing, emotive and really rather good.

New Boy is the retelling of Othello and transposed to a schoolyard and a group of 11 year-olds in 1970s Washington. Although I have read many Shakespeare plays Othello is not one of them, so I cannot comment on that aspect of the book. However, as a standalone novel I found it gritty and hard-hitting, expertly portraying the many issues that arise for young adolescents like forming and maintaining friendships, peer pressure, jealousy.

Osei is not only the new boy, but also the only black boy in a school of white pupils and staff. The overt racism by pupils and teachers alike is both shocking and upsetting in equal measure.

This is a powerful, well-written book, which made me feel many emotions, however I was a little disappointed by the abruptness of the ending.

this book is really hard to rate, because i appreciate the try and while some parts work really well, other just... well do not work at all.

Chevalier's setting of a 1960 (70's?) american elementary school playground was okay, but honestly i think the entire story would have worked better as she wrote it set during the second to last or last high school year, and she simply should have found a different method of ending th ebook instead of the climb... thing.
And since i am already talking about this...
the characters in this book are what? 11 or 12 at the most? that is the typical age for 6th graders right? Or is the 6th grade in a different age group than that?
Lets go with my age range since that is what i am used to and would make sense with the kids still playing stupid little games and climbing all over a jungle climbing thing.



The BAD:


One of the biggest issues i had was the sexuality in this book.
No 11 year old should or wants to tongue kiss another one? how many shove their hips together to let the other feel their penis? i am not speaking from experience here, but my guess would be that there is not a huge amount of 11 year old boys get erections from simply hugging a girl that is also 11 years old, right?

Or simply the "relationships" they have where a girl leaves a really vindictive and clearly mean spirited boy in a way that is way, way, way to mature and adult for any kid in the age range between 10 and 15 or older!

Its just too much sex, to much mention of sexual acts and mentions of erections on 11 year olds in this book! Either set so that the characters are older, or just leave that out, alright?

Let 11 years old fight over who as the best lunch, or has the most friends, or the best back-pack for crying out loud! Let them fight over a grade, or all gang together and hate the new boy simply for being black and making fun of the nice helpful popular white girl that tries to make the new boy feel welcome, simply for trying to do that with a new kid they all don't know and looks different from them.

And they that would have worked with the whole plot point of racism!

But please, please! don't sexualise kids! Because that is what 11 years old are!!!!

And since i am already talking about the negative things...
lets just go with the other thing i didn't like!

The ending? because what the heck was that?
I know its a short novel! its not even 200 pages! i get that.
But setting the entire thing during one small school hour day, and than giving it that kind of ending with all those hurt and over looming death? Shall i remind you all again how old those main characters are again? I can! (hint! around 11 years old!!!!)
So yeah that ending, with what was said and done and how the entire situation was handled by the adults?
Not working for me, even in the entire setting of wanting it completely set up to show the clear and utter racism come to a high point.

It didn't work for me, it was not a good ending for a sadly only medicor story for me with all the issues i had with it.



The good:

Dee -because a white girl in that age that just sees the beauty in a black boy she never saw before and is really nice to him and helpful despite what she hears the others she knows and respects say about the boy? PURE Beauty right there! I loved that the author included a character that clearly NOT having issues with the skin colour of a person!

The racism: That felt very real and realistic. You had the adults, the teachers that openly shared how they did not like and minded very much that they now had a black boy in their school, that they did not want him here was also made very clear especially in front of other students. Which i think reflects pretty clearly how it really was during a way too long a time in america -and a lot of other places in the world lets be honest!
I also LOVED that the author let a teacher talk down to O in a way that clearly stated that she thought he was from a very poor family -which he could not have been being a diplomats son!- but simply because he is a black boy, he must be poor! That is such a realistic and real life moment that that just stood out to me in a big way (and was one of the biggest reasons i had issues with deciding how to rate this book because there were those so clearly well done and thought out moments and situations... and than the rest of it that didn't work and go with those wonderfully done moments! which just confuses me endlessly honestly!)




The middle ground:

the best friend mimi - she is a good character. She tries to understand what her best friend sees in the new boy, why Dee ignores what everyones says about him and tries to get to know him. I liked that. She clearly wants to side with the teachers and other children around her, but she also tries to see the side her best friend sees.
But at the same time... what were those mentions of migraine -which by the way those are no joke to deal with at that age and with kids that don't get it and having to sit through school! trust me i had to do it and it is NOT easy! because migraines are not headaches!
so way make them into something strange?
Why not have this character add diversity into the story by letting her have an illness that is very hard to live with and maybe use that as a starting point for her to see the side of this black boy that clearly has trouble being seen and understood just as she had to have had with her illness!
So that ... that didn't work for me story, to many personal issues with that little tippet of plot!

the writing itself - is... okay? I guess. It works. It delivers the story and it is not bad!
But i didn't really love that we sometimes go back a while when a new chapters starts and the get the same story we already where told just a few sentences ago from a different point of view, but in a way that didn't feel like anything new was added for a good few pages until we finally got to a point where the character we were currently following along through the chapter gone into a different direction than the one we followed previously.
Or in other words that might be easier understood: Why double up half of each chapter with something we were literary just told in the second half of the chapter before? Why not just jump to the point where we get to the new plot?



The overall plot -clearly not talking about the age problem or the end problem here since i already ranted about those two issues!- was ... okay. It wasn't a great retelling of Othello. But it was okay. It was clearly one in all the little details -the names especially where a huge hint!- and maybe when you read this story and then go to Othello you might understand it better? But honestly i don't think so, because the entire story here evolves around a NEW boy that is different while Othello (if i am remembering correctly it has been a decade people, and i did not look it up before writing this here!) build the story around a well established and widely known black man living in the city and "Just" showing the issues he has in everyday life.
So the entire feel and setting of this plot and the original plot? Very different, in my option. Still workable and not the worse -could have been done a bit better, but still that was okay.


Overall?

I swear i am not trying to talk this book down! even if it might come across that way!
But so far this was the weakest in the modern Shakespearean retelling novels i have read.
It could have worked wonderfully, you see those moments blink in between the clear issues of the book and i WISH the author would have taken the steps into that direction instead of where she let the story go.
I wish she would have given us a better ending, because sometimes that makes all the different!

Sadly for me this book was not good, and while it certainly wasn't the WORSED it also wasn't anything i would recommend people to read -IF they don't want a good example for how racism is portrait in literature in a realistic way!


Decide for yourselves if you want to pick this up!

New Boy by Tracy Chevalier is the latest book in the Hogarth Shakespeare project. This project takes today’s noted authors and asks them to rewrite Shakespeare’s plays for a modern audience. So far, the project has tackled the likes of The Winter’s Tale, The Merchant of Venice, The Taming of the Shrew and The Tempest with authors Jeanette Winterson, Howard Jacobson, Anne Tyler and Margaret Atwood respectively. New Boy is Chevalier’s take on Othello.

Before going into this review, I will admit that I have never seen or read Othello – it’s not a play I know much about. I have, however, read a few other retellings so had a vague notion of the plot before going in. That being said, on reading up on the original play after reading, I was impressed by how well Chevalier had been able to capture the essence of the story, and a few key details, in the story she decided to write.
For New Boy takes the tragedy of Othello, with all the drama and betrayal, and places it in the setting of a primary school, with a cast of 11-year-olds (and two teachers). This was probably the most impressive part of this novel for me, particularly with regards to how well it worked. All the themes of Othello were transplanted into this school-setting and everything made perfect sense.

Much like the play, this book takes place over the course of several acts. In New Boy’s case, it took place during the breaks and before and after school. This meant that nearly the majority of the book occurred on the school playground, with very little interference from the adults. And, when there was that interference, it suited the plot and the progression of Othello in the school-setting. I thought the decision to have the book primarily set in those breaks, on the playground, really added to the experience of reading, especially as it was a clear demonstration of the story progressing, without the tedium of lessons. It allowed the characters to interact more freely and helped with both the pacing and the character development.

As with many other retellings of Othello, the main conflicts revolve around race, with Osei (the Othello-character) being the sole black child in the entire school, and jealousy, with Ian (the Iago-character) feeling threatened by Osei’s arrival. Osei is also the book’s eponymous new boy so also carries that weight with him as well. While having no experience of being black (or male for that matter), I could relate to Osei’s experience of being the new student, particularly part way through the school year, and thought Chevalier captured various aspects of this experience really well.

Osei himself was an interesting character – the son of a diplomat, with a calm exterior but a well of emotion inside. This paralleled nicely with Dee, the school’s star pupil, who wears her heart on her sleeve. Their relationship, a cute affection for one another which went no further than typical playground relationships normally go, brought out the uglier sides of students and teachers alike, while highlighting the racism demonstrated by both. The other students played their parts perfectly well as well, being both likeable and
unwitting players in the drama which unfolded alike (well, except for Ian who was very much involved).

All in all, I found this retelling to be a really enjoyable read. The story flowed and I found myself moving through it with ease, savouring each moment. It captured the original play beautifully while also creating a story which felt new and relatable. Not only that, but the implanting of a tragedy into a school setting really highlighted how applicable these stories still are today (while also demonstrating that children are just plain cruel).

Othello for primary school...

Chevalier has taken Shakespeare's tragedy of revenge and placed it in a fascinating context - that of an elementary school playground/classroom, with a class of students not yet adolescent, not quite still children. It does work, but some aspects don't feel quite authentic.

New boy Osei (Othello) is black, and in the 1970s classroom, stands out, with both blatant and less open racism all around him on his first day - from staff as well as fellow students. Dee (our Desdemona) immediately takes to him, they decide to 'go out', as many other classmates are doing, such as Mimi and Ian (the play's Iago).

The book follows the main plot of Shakespeare's play, with mistaken actions, subterfuge and lies, jealousy and revenge, as teachers look on at the actions of the young protagonists.

Osei's situation is quite hard to watch - the language used around him, about the colour of his skin, is abhorent and shocking, and hard to comprehend. Dee is sweet and the heart of the story, quite a realistic character, Mimi also is well characterised and conflicted. Osei, thrust into yet another new school with rules, names and cliches he is outside of, sympathetic. It is Ian who didn't sit right, his character doesn't transfer well to that of an 11-year-old boy. The hostility and evil temperament of a boy determined to manipulate and twist others to his plans just doesn't feel realistic - he speaks and thinks like a grown man, with the emotional distance of a adult sociopath.

The plot moves quickly from stolen pencil cases, kisses, fights and accusations to a very physical conclusion. Knowing the ending of the play, you do worry for the children: just how Chevalier will treat her young cast, just how far will she go? You don't quite know how some characters fare, the author doesn't reveal their fate in so many words.

It's an interesting spin on the Shakespeare, with a sexualised young cast (which shocks a little but really shouldn't), racism in teachers (which shocks a little too), well transposed in features to a school setting. 10 Things I Hate About You worked in a high school (Taming of the Shrew), West Side Story (teenage gangs) worked on the New York streets, and now we've moved to ever younger children for petty revenge and rivalry.

Shakespeare truly is universal.

Not one for the age group portrayed possibly, but teenagers studying the play would find this useful supplementary discussion material.

With thanks to Netgalley for the advance review e-copy.

Othello with eleven year olds.
Osei Kokote, arrives for his first day at a new school. He immediately hits it off with Dee, but jealousy soon leads to tragedy. Written during one day in the school life of the 1970s America.
This book is a modern-day Othello, but for some reason the author has used 11 year olds as the main cast and it didn’t sit right. The children were a bit too worldly-wise for that time and age and it would have been better if they were about 15 when children are more sexually aware and jealousy and racism has a more aggressive meaning as in the original play.
The book did give an insight into how children’s hierarchy works in the 6th Grade American school system.
I cannot say I enjoyed the book, but it was very well written and edited and I would very much like to read another of Ms Chevalier’s books.
Helen
Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

Thank you so much for inviting me to review this title. I don't feel interested to read this currently as I haven't read the original Shakespeare play.

Tracy Chevalier captures what it feels like to be an outsider, to be alienated for being different. As the issues of racism, prejudice, and jealousy came to a head, the tension constantly increased and kept me reading into the small hours. A short read permeated with issues that are still relevant today. I would definitely recommend this book.

In this contemporary re-reading of Shakespeare's "Othello", Tracy Chevalier manages to recreate the atmosphere of emotions of the great Bard. The ingenuity of some characters, the cunning of others, the climate of jealousy and doubt that characterize the "Othello" are reinterpreted by these children, almost teenagers. The sensitivity and understanding with which the Chevalier depicts the adolescence's ways of thinking and acting is masterful.
A truly successful reinterpretation.

In questa rilettura contemporanea dell'Otello di Shakespeare, la Chevalier riesce a ricreare il clima di emozioni del grande maestro. L'ingenuità di alcuni personaggi, l'astuzia di altri, il clima di gelosia e di dubbio che caratterizzano l'Otello sono reinterpretati da questi bambini, quasi adolescenti. La sensibilità e la conoscenza con cui la Chevalier dipinge i modi di pensare e di agire dell'adolescenza è magistrale.
Una rilettura veramente riuscita.

THANKS TO NETGALLEY FOR THE PREVIEW!

I have read a number of Tracy Chevalier books in the past and was keen to read this. Hearing that it was an updated take on the Othello story also piqued my interest. As an experienced writer Tracy Chevalier handles the complexities of this plot well and it is well written. Although unfamiliar to me, I believe she conveys the setting of a 1970's elementary school in Washington DC well.

However the original Shakespearean plot has its own flaws and makes updating it quite a challenge. To add to this the action is all set in one day which also strains its believability somewhat.

I'm a high school English teacher whose favourite Shakespeare play is Othello, with a huge girl-crush on Tracy Chevalier so you'd think this would be a slam-dunk, but in fact I didn't like it enough to finish it. I remember watching 'O' which was very similar - a film re-imagining of Othello around high school basketball, and found it a bit cringeworthy. I used to show it to my lower ability classes to get them interested, but really beyond that I didn't rate it.
Chevalier is an amazing author and nothing is wrong with the writing here; I just didn'tfeel compelled, perhaps because I know the events and outcome, perhaps because I found them too young to be credible villains and lovers?

Wow!

Tracy Chevalier continues on her upward trajection as her writing gets better and better. I have read all her previous books but this being the most up to date is also the most powerful.

A new boy arrives at school but as he is the first black boy there and 'they are always trouble' so when something dreadful happens he is clearly the one to blame.
The ending of the book left me stunned.

I highly recommend this book.

I was given this book by Netgalley and the publisher. This is my voluntary review.

Tracy Chevalier, New Boy
Othello, set on a schoolyard somewhere in Washington in the 1970s? Can do. Shakespeare today – for young readers? – is what the Hogarth Shakespeare initiative is about. And Tracy Chevalier’s New Boy is politically correct and adequately depicting the openly and subtly racist world of the time. The story covers just one day and a few retrospections in the lives of three girls – Dee, Mimi and Blanca – and three boys – Osei, Ian and Casper – of about 11, near the end of their elementary school years. One more month, and off to Junior High they’ll go. Osei Kokote’s parents could have waited until then, before they send their beautiful diplomat’s kid from Ghana to the all-white suburban institution. However, the family just moved to the neighborhood, and their son should make friends. Easier said than done. Since neither Casper, the blond male star of the school, nor his rival, bullying working class Ian, are particularly fond of a black boy in their school. Let alone Mr. Brabant, the old teacher. Only the girls seem to like the new kid on the block: “sexy” Blanca, Mimi the “redhead”, and Dee, the “teachers’ pet”.
To recount the drama that unfolds at the school here would be a spoiler. Better go and read for yourselves. It is a short novel. But it is special. A worthwhile read!
Reviewers note: I was offered the ebook via Netgalley

I honestly think this may well be my favourite of the Hogarth Shakespeare series so far! Chevalier does a masterful job of taking Othello and making it a new tale while keeping the gritty storyline in tact.
I was a little sceptical when I read that it would be set in a Washington school, but it is carried off with such style that I was hooked from the start. This is the first book I've read by Tracy Chevalier, I will definitely be picking up more of her books in future!

New Boy is a retelling of Shakespeare’s Othello, set at a Washington schoolyard in the 1970s. The story unfolds in a single day.
I thought the setting was very interesting and worked well for the story. Of course, it is less complex than the original play, but believable. Yet, towards the end, I got a little tired of schoolyard children. But then the last few pages were so captivating and it has a very strong ending.
It is written from the points of view of four children, which gives the reader full understanding about how events are developing. The first part was slightly repetitive as it described the exact same things through different narrators, but the events in the other sections follow each other more. In this way they really complement each other.
I loved the attention to detail and I felt I was really in a white school in the 1970s. I also really liked how the book showed that discrimination is an age-old issue and that we still have a long way to go.
As said this story is less complex as the original. It also doesn’t completely follow the story line of Othello, especially towards the end.
I enjoyed this book, even if it took me longer to read than I had expected based the low number of pages.
3.5 stars.

I'm a great admirer of Chevalier and her concept is clever - to set the story of Othello among the ever-changing alliances and rivalries of an elementary-school playground. Certainly, this setting gives plausibility to the lightening-swift shifts of Shakespeare's characters, but I just couldn't shake off a certain... uneasiness. Such a story, which hinges so heavily on sexual jealousy and very adult violence, doesn't sit comfortably in such a place. On one hand, we risk the complexities of the story being lost; on the other, we see children behaving in a way which feels too mature for eleven-year-olds. Nevertheless, it's an interesting - and disturbing - experiment.

Osei Kokote is an diplomat's son, newly posted to 1970s Washington with his father. With only a few weeks of school left before the summer holidays, and graduation to junior high, he's been enrolled in the local elementary school as a way to break him in softly, and give him the chance to meet new friends. This, as Osei knows only too well, is ridiculous. His parents don't understand what it feels like to be the only black boy in a white sea of faces, among snide children and biogted teachers. He does. He's an expert at starting new schools: at always being the new boy, the oddity, standing out in Rome, London, New York... And he's used to the fact that, on your first day, no one cares for the new boy.

No one except Dee Benedetti, that is. Something of a teacher's pet, she's asked to take Osei under her wing. But, as they line up for class, there's a spark of something unexpected between this blonde, all-American girl and the quiet, courteous son of the Ghanaian diplomat. Fascinated by his charm, his composure and his exoticism, Dee wants to help Osei - or 'O', as he suggests she calls him, as no one can pronounce his full name. She even swaps pencil cases with him, so that he doesn't have to use his sister's mortifying strawberry-patterned case (the only one his mum could find). By morning recess, the entire year is aware of their chemistry. By lunchtime, they're going out. And, by afternoon recess, their blossoming tendresse is already heading towards the rocks of suspicion, jealousy and, perhaps, worse... And this comes courtesy of Ian, precociously cunning in the art of causing pain, who sees his hard-won place as the master of the playground slipping from his grip.

Othello should be a hard play to transpose to other circumstances. In an ideal world, it would be a historical piece, bound to the worldview of 17th-century Venice and Cyprus. Its nasty racial slurs should shock far more than they do. The fact that it can actually be retold so easily in the modern world is gloomy proof that we haven't come anywhere near as far in terms of diversity and tolerance as we'd like to think. Yet, as I said above, I just can't quite buy into the elementary-school setting. Chevalier does a good job of transposing characters: Osei's and Dee's class tutor is Mr Brabant; the headmistress is Mrs Duke; Ian's sidekick is the irritating Rod; and his unwilling girlfriend is the delicate Mimi (whose migraines seem to indicate some kind of clairvoyant power). And yes, of course one takes things seriously at school - but might it not have worked better with slightly older children? Yes, elementary or primary-age children play at going out with one another - I remember getting married several times in the playground - but I felt that the final act didn't quite convince.

Moreover, although we get a good idea of Osei's character, we never really get to know Ian, and what we do know is purely unpleasant. Maybe it's just because I have a sympathy for Machiavellians, but I've always thought one of the wonderful things about Othello is that Shakespeare encourages you to enjoy Iago's company. He's an absolute swine, and Othello himself is the hero no doubt, but there's something about Iago's beguiling soliloquies that draws you in, irresistibly, to dance awhile on the dark side with him. That connection is never here in this book. Ian is a pure bully, a stealer of smaller children's pocket money, an embryonic mob boss. We never feel ourselves drawn in by that seductive crook of the finger - come here, let me confide in you - as we do in the play. I do, however, have to commend Chevalier in sticking more ruthlessly than Shakespeare to Aristotle's maxim that a tragedy should take place during the course of only one day. Perhaps this is only really credible in the quicksilver world of playground relationships. But it also deprives us of the depth, power and passion of the story when acted out by more mature and complicated individuals.

However, a new book by Chevalier is always cause for celebration, so certainly seek it out. It is a powerful exploration of identity and belonging and racial stereotyping, in the not-so-distant past. But don't necessarily expect it to change the way you understand the play.

The review will be published on my blog on 31 March 2017 at the following link:
https://theidlewoman.net/2017/03/31/new-boy-tracey-chevalier

New Boy is the latest book in the Hogarth Shakespeare series, a modern retelling of Othello with the action transported to a schoolyard in 1970s Washington. Osei is the new boy and the only black kid in a suburban school. He meets Dee, Ian, Mimi, Casper, and Blanca and the stage is set for a first day unlike others. These sixth graders are the big fish in a small pond and their dramas are fast-paced, with relationships and arguments made and broken between lessons. Chevalier uses this setting to make her novel a tense exposition of jealousy, anger, and race, showing how Othello’s themes do not only defy time, but also age.

The book is structured around a single day, with the weird sense of time matching Shakespeare’s strange timeline in Othello and making the novel seem like a play, with far more limited movement of place than in the original text. The characters are bound by the edges of the school grounds, making a claustrophobic setting that cannot contain Osei’s eventual anger or Ian’s manipulation. The presence of the teachers on the edges is similar to the officials and outsiders in Othello who appear but are never able to halt the action. In the case of New Boy, the teachers’ implied and overt racism and uncertainty about how to deal with Osei’s presence actively encourage the pupils in some ways, like Brabantio’s initial opinions of Othello in the play.

Shakespeare’s characters are mapped pretty straightforwardly onto their playground equivalents, though Chevalier is able through the form to give them greater internal lives and backstories, particularly the girls. Dee’s desire for something exciting explains her sudden interest in more worldly Osei, who has lived around the world and whose older sister has given him an awareness of Black Power and other political movements. Ian’s quest for power over fellow students and his desire for self-control are clear, manifesting themselves in his manipulative actions when interfering with schoolyard activities and his anger at his own failings. The stand out character is Mimi, an uncertain girl prone to headaches who, uncomfortable with Ian’s attention, helps him out and later regrets it. She is Shakespeare’s Emilia given more of a chance to have thoughts and emotions about Ian’s actions and about her friend Dee.

The narrative too is obviously that of Othello, with details changed yet the stakes still feeling high. From the vivid picture of childhood jealousies and fears that Chevalier paints, it is easy to be drawn into the world and feel that the reputations and relationships at stake are real to the characters, not just childish preoccupations but how they see their place in the world. Some scenes are clear updates of Shakespearean ones, for example when Mimi re-plaits Dee’s hair whilst they sing along to ‘Killing Me Softly’ and talking about how confusing boys are. This scene is Shakespeare’s made into a 1970s image of two white girls singing along to a song sung by a black woman, not fully aware with how this intersects with exactly what is going on that day.

As part of the Hogarth Shakespeare series, New Boy is fairly typical - updating character names, mentioning Shakespeare and his plays in a casual way, changing plot points but giving them the same tension in the narrative as the original - but it is the way in which Chevalier creates a claustrophobic world of childhood jealousy and mistrust set within the larger adult world that makes the novel stand out. It isn’t news that the racism, jealousy, and power struggles in Othello have not lost their relevance four hundred years later, but in New Boy it is glaringly obvious that such issues can be incited to escalation in all kinds of environments. The tragedy of Othello becomes both the tragedy of one dramatic schoolyard in 1970s Washington and the tragedy of how Othello just cannot seem to lose its societal comparisons.

This is the mordern reimagining in the Hogarth Shakespeare series of the dark psychological play, Othello. It is transferred to the 1070s and set amongst 6th graders and teachers in a elementary school in a suburb of Washington DC. It works surprisingly well and the action takes place over the period of a day. The heavy and raw emotions of an incendiary jealousy bent on destruction, rage, envy, insecurity and resentment fits well into the school playground where the smallest of incidents gets blown up into mammoth proportions. The importance attached to in crowds and popularity, resonate with school kids and underline its insidious malevolence in the school milieu.

Osei is black, a Ghanian diplomat's son, and the eponymous new boy who understands the need for friends to fit in into the all white school. There is blatant presence of a casual racism coming from teachers and children. Rising above all that and seeking to understand is the bright, popular and popular Dee who befriends Osei, along with Casper. This puts the cat among the pigeons as the old social order perceives itself to be threatened, personified by the manipulative and jealous Ian, chief ruler of the playground using fear and bullying as his means to establish his top dog position. Ian has no intention of letting things stand as they are between the star crossed lovers. Unlike Othello, we get glimpses of the sweet and tender relationship between Osei and Dee. Ian, is reduced to a more vindictive, petty and smaller character in the greater scheme of things than the more central larger than life Iago envisioned in Othello. We all know where the action is inexorably heading. lending dread to the narrative for the reader.

This novel speaks volumes with regards to the issue of race in contemporary politics and society. Osei is the outsider whose treatment bears distinctly uncomfortable parallels with the experience of black people and migrants today. The schoolyard is but a micro stage of the larger national and international stage inhabited by adults. Tracy Chevalier's reworking of Othello does not by any means work perfectly. Nevertheless, the setting is a success, the time frame perhaps less so. I found this a quick, absorbing, compelling and entertaining read. Highly recommended and a great way to get young people into Shakespeare. Thanks to Random House Vintage for an ARC.