Werewolf Hamlet

Coming February 18, 2025. Pre-order today! By: Kerry Madden-Lunsford Are werewolves appropriate for fifth grade? 10-year-old Angus has the perfect plan for his fifth-grade legacy project: stage a performance of Hamlet, but with werewolves. Werewolf Hamlet.  His 17-year-old brother Liam is like a werewolf now. Angus never knows if he'll be nice or mean or when he'll sneak out to get drunk or worse.  The pressure is on at home, too. Mom and Dad are going to default on the mortgage. Older sister Hannah is fed up and ready to move herself from Los Angeles to Maine. Little sister Sidney doesn't really get what's going on. When Liam goes missing, Angus has to hunt through Hollywood to find him before his family falls apart for good. If you like this book, you’ll enjoy these: Charlesbridge Moves [TABS] Look Inside Downloadables Download the Cover Download the Reader's Group Guide Author & Illustrator Kerry Madden-Lunsford, author Kerry Madden-Lunsford is a regular contributor to the LA Times OpEd page. She directs the creative writing program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and teaches in the Antioch MFA Program in Los Angeles. She is the author of the picture book Ernestine’s Milky Way. She also wrote the Maggie Valley Trilogy, which includes Gentle’s Holler, Louisiana’s Song, and Jessie’s Mountain. Her first novel, Offsides, was a New York Public Library Pick for the Teen Age. Kerry is the mother of three adult children, and she now lives full-time in Birmingham, Alabama. Read more about Kerry. Awards & Honors A JLG Gold Standard selection Editorial Reviews Booklist, starred review Displaying rare knacks for both lively classroom banter and sensitive portrayals of complex dynamics within a close but stressed family, Madden-Lunsford hands 10-year-old Angus Gettlefinger the challenge of convincing his reluctant teacher to allow him to perform a version of Hamlet with a werewolf cast. Why? Because as a classic “play within a play,” it would allow him to act out his own intense feelings while mirroring what he sees his increasingly secretive, angry, drug-and-alcohol abusing teenage brother, Liam, becoming. Meanwhile, money problems force the four Gettlefinger sibs and their frazzled, underemployed parents out of their house and into a one bedroom apartment. The pressure mounts to crisis level when Liam fails to come home after one of his nighttime excursions, but a cathartic whirl of rash acts, straight talk, and, yes, onstage howling does ultimately lead to cautiously optimistic outcomes for Angus and his family. The author closes with resources for teen alcoholics and their concerned family members, but not before delivering a story that is rich in wise insights, comical and emotionally wrenching moments in turn, imaginary dialogues with Lon Chaney and other silent film era stars, and colorful quotes from the Bard drawn in large part from the online Shakespearean Insulter. Who says Hamlet isn’t appropriate fare for elementary-schoolers? Details Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-62354-433-1 Ages: 10 and up Page count: 256 51/2 x 81/4 Publication date: February 18, 2025 [/TABS]