A review by carolineroche
New Boy by Tracy Chevalier

4.0

This is one of the Hogarth Shakespeare series and is a retelling of Othello. Set in the 1970’s this reimagining of the play is set in a playground and takes place over one day. Cleverly the main characters all have names starting with the same letters as their counterparts thus Othello/Osei, Desdemona/Dee, Iago/ Ian and so on. The strawberry handkerchief is transposed into a strawberry decorated pencil case. The whole sad story of jealousy, betrayal and prejudice is replayed in an elementary school playground- and that was the only bit that Jarred for me If Chevalier had set it on a secondary school with the protagonists between 14 and 16 it would be entirely believable. But I had problems marrying the depth of emotion as intrigue with 11 year olds. Apart from that it is a brilliant retelling of Othello and I loved it.