Just So Stories

Penguin Australia

February 2026

Imprint: Penguin

ISBN: 9781761349744

RRP: $16.99

If Hamlet is Not OK made you laugh a lot and cast Shakespeare into a different light altogether, verily forsooth! just wait till you get thy hands on this tome.

I truly wish this had been around the last time I taught R&J [though I say so myself my units for this were always a big hit], R. A. Spratt’s newest twist on the Bard would have been the icing on the cake as a companion read-aloud.

Selby’s academic progress has improved and so has her attitude, for the most part, but she still marches to the beat of her own drum and successfully flies under the radar for most of the time. But English teacher, Ms Karim, has different ideas and when Selby is elevated from understudy to main role as Juliet in the class performance of the famous tragedy, it’s all panic stations.

In steps former tutor, now friend, Dan who is always willing to help the snarky teen, but, of course, Selby’s inexplicable ability to time-and-dimension-warp into Shakespeare’s world, lands them both in hot Italian water.

Selby’s feminist wrath means she is determined to extricate the fair Juliet from being forced into a fatal end, or even worse into marriage itself, and Dan ends up skewered accidentally but seriously by a pointy blade, not dulled by either fiction or time&space. Hilarious but serious, this is the way R. A. Spratt rolls, especially with this series which will not only entertain readers but, essentially, give them a new understanding of Shakespeare’s work and intentions.

After all, as I’ve told every English class I’ve ever taught, Shakespeare was The Bold and the Beautiful of his time. While we now regard him as the greatest writer of all time, he was churning out potboilers one after another to amuse and beguile, shock and dismay Elizabethan audiences from the poorest to the richest.

Trying to manage a bewildered but fast becoming savvy Juliet, followed by a rather dense Romeo and, certainly, a very brash Mercutio in modern times is rather like working with Prep children – more akin to herding cats than anything else. Selby realises this very quickly.

But Selby not only rises to the occasion, demonstrating it’s not all about academics, but provides the reader with a completely satisfying conclusion. And Dan, (yes, we do sense a growing attachment between these two young people), thankfully is recovering nicely from being run through by a rapier.

It’s another snort-laugh offering from the fair House of Spratt and I would unhesitatingly give it a 5 ⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️rating for readers from around 12 years upwards.

Year 9 loved this one! If you want to know more about my creative and successful R&J unit, send me a message – happy to share.

From Building Book Love – teaching ideas for R&J – also check out Twinkl – I used a few of their more ‘fun’ ideas such as stick puppets for re-enacting or improv on scenes.