A really interesting take on Othello, A quick, modern and compelling read. My favourite Hogarth retelling yet.

Othello is one of my favourite Shakespeare plays and so to see it re-written in the youthful American setting made it all the more special to me. The casual (and not so casual) racism that surrounds Osei is enraging and it's easy to follow the parallels between him and Othello. Iago becomes Ian, a jealous school bully with a scheming mind, while the girls on the playground become the love interests. Their skipping games make them appear to be fickle, but just like Shakespeare's play, they turn out to be the most lovable characters of all.

Totalling less than 200 pages, New Boy was a snappy version of the classic which managed to capture every mood of the original. From the overwhelming romance to the dark betrayal, the school playground was the perfect setting for the quick ups and downs of relationship drama. It increased my love for Othello even more.

New Boy is one of Hogarth's Shakespeare retold series, and I loved it. Before reading I couldn't figure out how Chevalier would turn Othello into a story set in a primary school, but the retelling is very successful. Othello becomes 'O', the new, Ghanian, boy at an all white DC school, where playground rivalries and machinations take the place of Shakespeare's naval/political intrigues.

I was caught up in the story throughout, however I do think Chevalier didn't get the 1970s setting quite right. There were lots of obvious references to race and racial tensions, but it didn't all ring true, which is surprising given that Chevalier is known for her historical fiction. In addition, I found the age of the main characters (11-12) too young for the implied, and sometimes explicit, sexual undertones.

Based on Othello but transposed to Washington DC elementary school in the 1970s. and told over the period of one day The main characters are all aged 11 years old. O is the son of a diplomat now based in DC, Dee is a local girl who is instantly fascinated by the new boy who starts in her class, The careless racism portrayed by both pupils and teachers jars when viewed from a 21st century perspective..
I have read other books where the Othello lot has been moved to a school environment but those have been set in senior schools. I can see how the author thought extremes of emotion experienced by younger children in a day may have felt like a good opportunity but I found the depiction of jealousy displayed by children difficult. I didn't feel it really worked but there would be plenty of scope for book group discussions.in this title

A very enjoyable take on the Othello story, with the action moved to the school playground, Dee and O are around thirteen, and puberty is rearing its heated head among their classmates. O is a newcomer and the only black pupil in the school, son of a Ghanaian diplomat posted to Washington DC. Dee is the girl who takes her new classmate under her wing, with unforeseen and ultimately tragic results. It is very clever transposition which works well and demonstrates the universal themes of the original play. Young Adults will enjoy reading this, but older adults will, too.

Part of the Hogarth series of re imagined works by Shakespeare, this is Tracy Chevalier's take on Othello. She has set it in a suburban Washington school in the 1970s with Othello et al being sixth graders. Her Othello is Osei (O), the New Boy of the title, the son of a Ghanaian diplomat and Desdemona is Dee, who is instantly and sweetly attracted to O. The parallel on the whole works well, with the playground jealousy and emotion feeling intense and real. Unfortunately, Ian doesn't quite work as Iago, lacking the complexity needed. I think this would be a good text for young people to read alongside Othello and discuss.

As a children's fiction writer, this was profoundly not to my tastes. The Hogarth Shakespeare series has been remarkably interesting - it's so hard to get something like this right.

I loved this quick read. Othello is not a Shakespeare play I am familiar with so I read it as a stand alone story. Set in a primary school in Washington in the 1970s I could identify with the games and relationships of that era. In fact I was surprised by the similarities of the games played in Washington and Glasgow! So what happens? A new boy appears in the playground one morning. And not just any new boy - this is Osei Kokote, the son of a Ghanain diplomat and the first black child to attend the school. Prejudices are shown - not least from the teachers. There is surprise when Dee, the popular, pretty girl become friendly with O and "goes with him". (I loved this expression - same as we used at that age). The book treats these children as functioning people with brains and minds of their own, not as is so often the case, as little children to be talked at and told what to do. This is from their point of view, and works surprisingly well as an adult read. If you really look at the story, it is O's popularity and open friendly manner that cause the suspicion and problem with king of the playground, Ian, but it's put across as being because of his colour. An interesting insight into discrimination in the 70s and the horrific and abhorrent nature of this shows how far we've come as a society that people's differences are no longer something to be afraid of. Although with recent world events, some of the world is possibly taking a huge step back.

Osei is the son of an African diplomat and he is used to being the new boy in school. As his father is now posted to Washington, Osei had joined a middle school just as students are on the cusp of transitioning to junior high and are developing physically and socially into teenagers. On his first day Osei is taken up by Dee, an attractive popular student, and by recess they are 'together'. However inherent racism among students and the staff rears its ugly head and class troublemaker Ian becomes jealous of the blooming relationship and the ease with which O has integrated into the class.

A new book by Chevalier is always a treat and this is something special. Written as part of a Shakespeare project this is a retelling of Othello translated to 1970s suburbia yet the themes are clear. This is not a long book, the action takes place over a single day and hurtles along. The reader senses the tragedy around the corner and those familiar with the original text will identify each character and their motives. I felt that the creation of the atmosphere in the school was handled well, the rising tension and the passion as felt by the 'tweens' is palpable. This is brilliant writing.

Although this was a take on Shakespeares' Othello, it was also a story of racial hatred perpetrated by supposed innocents and encouraged by adults who should have known better. A very sad story.

So this was part of a Shakespeare retelling series. New boy was inspired by the tragedy Othello, which I haven't read, set on the 1970's school playground of suburban Washington. As soon as I saw the word "tragedy" I was so anxious about how this would end, but it wasn't as graphic and brutal as I had expected and that left a kind of underwhelming force for me.
I loved that we got inside the heads of quite a few of the children that were mainly involved in this plot and it was interesting to see how they felt about a new, black boy "invading" their territory, so to speak. Some were more excepting than others and it was interesting how these initial thoughts were interwoven into the intricate finale. I also loved that they were referencing doing a Shakespeare play but this novel in itself was a Shakespeare play. I would have preferred a little more reference to the play they were putting together as it was just a little thrown in there to make sense for a certain situation.
Osei was a very interesting boy. I really liked him for most of the book but when he started listening to people he shouldn't have, it made me very disappointed in him. I would have liked have known more about Dee's home life as well as Mimi's interesting headaches. The characters that we saw the most of were written in ways you would imagine a child to think, and they each had their own specialities that set them apart.
I wasn't sure if Dee liked Osei because of his differences (I mean she is best friends with the "strange" Mimi), and some of her comments were so ignorant it was annoying.. But at the same time, she was showing an interest to learn what was not right.
It was really interesting seeing the dynamics of school children, on the cusp of teen hood, and how society had sculpted and influenced their views on ethnicity at that time. It's still something thing that happens in a negative way today, so a very relevant theme.
One thing I picked up on and liked was the rhymes at the start of each part. They were repeated later on in children playground chants and it really tied everything together well.

Overall, I think I was expecting a little more from this. I was really stealing myself for some brutal children unkindness, but it was a little watered down. I really enjoyed this and would recommend.

Although no Shakespear buff even I can pick out how cleverly Tracey Chevalier has blended the tale to a school in the 1980s.
It was straightforward and not obviously slanted at younger audiences except for the minutae of the tale revolving around a pencil case etc,
The overriding sense form the book is that people - black, white, teen or adult are pretty horrible. The difference being whether the perpetrator suffers remorse or revels in the mayhem caused.

I'm not sure that many teens today would be interested in the 1980s and fear the tale could havwe been left in the original century b ecause it will probably seem all as far back to a young reader.
UInlike Celia Aherne's YA fiction, I dod not find it as absorbing, but had I been studying Shakespear recently at schoolm which is likely to be the main audience, I may feel differently.

It's hard to imagine this is the same author as the writer of The Edge of the Orchard

If I hadn’t known this was by Tracy Chevalier I wouldn’t have been able to guess from the thin plot, clichéd characters, unconvincing dialogue and overall pedestrian writing. I was really disappointed and bemused by it. Then I found it that it’s a retelling of Othello from the Shakespeare series from Hogarth – a misguided venture to make Shakespeare relevant to a new audience. Chevalier’s approach to her brief was to set Othello in a Washington school amongst 11 year olds. So you have the first problem right there. A play about jealousy, revenge, racism, a profoundly tragic play, a play where depth of feeling and emotion and motive haunt us to this day – and she transposes it to a playground, a playground where 11 year olds somehow react with a maturity and sophistication and understanding that no 11 year old ever could in my experience, where a tragic outcome occurs at the end of one short day, where the children are sexualised way beyond their years. It just doesn’t work. It doesn’t even work as a simple story of kids in a playground, and it certainly doesn’t work as a retelling of Othello. Not in my opinion it doesn’t, anyway.

This is the description that I read and therefore decided to read the book: “Arriving at his fifth school in as many years, a diplomat’s son, Osei Kokote, knows he needs an ally if he is to survive his first day so he’s lucky to hit it off with Dee, the most popular girl in school. But one student can’t stand to witness this budding relationship: Ian decides to destroy the friendship between the black boy and the golden girl. By the end of the day, the school and its key players – teachers and pupils alike – will never be the same again.”

Add to that the fact that New Boy is a retelling of Othello, and you have a pretty curious premise for a book. Right?

In reality, the initial idea of the author was not necessarily bad. Some of the points that she made were also pretty valid and interesting. Ones such as racism, politics and hormone-based relationships.

However, the fatal flaw of the book was the fact that it takes place in a single day in the sixth grade. The story of Othello has no place among such young children, and neither do the author’s musings on politics, race and sex. I was a child not that long ago and I do remember what my interests were in the sixth grade. I can assure you that it was not kissing boys, thinking about “going all the way”; or about radicalism, the void between being a child and being a teenager and how to abuse my teachers.

“(…) [they] had only kissed when they played spin the bottle during recess – and then only twice, as it was shut down by teachers once they found out what was going on. But her response to O was not experimental. This is what I have been waiting for, she thought. This.“

Really? You’ve been waiting for meeting a boy in the morning in the playground and becoming his girlfriend by lunch? How long has the waiting been going on for? The entire 12 years of your life, or what?

It’s in no way realistic that such young children would be experiencing any part of this book, which renders the book itself not as good as it could have been. The reason for that is that it takes a toll on the reader to try to accept the book as a union between its content and the figures that are enacting it. Yes, Chevalier has a good point about, say, racism in schools in America, especially so in the 70’s. But would the situation really look like that in a group of such young kids? Would they make up sly and elaborate plans to destroy each other? More so, would this story really have the time to develop in the span of a single day? Or would O and Dee’s relationship really happen the way it did? Would it happen at all? Because even the most outgoing of kids at that age from my school in the 2000’s were not really kissing, dating and discussing sex, unless it was rumors about which of the much older kids from the school are doing it.

Therefore, New Boy was just so implausible to me that I couldn’t enjoy it without groaning and rolling my eyes at scenes that were so out of place and unrealistic.

Tracy Chevalier has eight popular historical fiction titles to her name, ranging in setting from the 17th-century Netherlands (“Girl With a Pearl Earring”) to mid-19th-century California (“At the Edge of the Orchard”).

But for “New Boy” the fifth entry in the Hogarth Shakespeare remake series, she’s chosen to lend the tragedy of “Othello” a near-contemporary situation and a backdrop much closer to home: her native Washington, D.C.

It’s the spring of 1974, and though there’s only one month remaining in the school year, it’s Osei Kokote’s first day. The son of a Ghanaian diplomat posted to the D.C. embassy, Osei is used to moving around; his family has lived everywhere from Rome to New York City.

Osei, who also goes simply by “O,” looks for a fellow person of color amid the “parade of pink-and-cream suburban Americans. But there was none.” He sticks out not just for his skin color but also for his uniform-like outfit and his dignified, well-spoken manner.

Fortunately, he’s immediately taken under the wing of one of the most popular sixth-graders, Daniela Benedetti (known as Dee), and they’re soon inseparable. Rounding out the key “Othello” cast members are Ian, a playground bully, and his reluctant girlfriend, Mimi.

In “Othello” a dropped handkerchief provided Iago’s opportunity to ruin Desdemona’s reputation; here the drama centers on a misplaced strawberry pencil case O swapped with Dee. Ian uses it to fuel O’s suspicion that Dee is two-timing him and thus drive them apart.

The novel takes place all in one day, divided into discrete sections by recess periods and a lunch break. The strict five-act structure and relatively frequent references to other Shakespeare plays emphasize the meta aspect, although not as much as in Margaret Atwood’s “Hag-Seed.”

Dee has a refreshingly innocent curiosity about the exotic: “It was his skin that stood out, its color reminding [her] of bears she’d seen at the zoo.” She also likens O’s head to a clay pot and his hair to a thick forest. In another context those metaphors might induce a cringe, but here they are a clever re-creation of a childlike perspective.

However, the language of possession and desire — “the fire [O] had felt when he first saw [Dee] flared up again” and “since then [Mimi] had felt bound to Ian” — feels overly dramatic here. Such vocabulary might be appropriate to use for high school seniors, but it’s impossible to forget that these are just 11-year-olds.

Jump rope rhymes, jungle gyms, kickball games, arts and crafts, and a typical cafeteria meal of Salisbury steak and tater tots: it’s impressive how Ms. Chevalier takes these ordinary elements and transforms them into symbols of a complex hierarchy and shifting loyalties.

Most remarkable, though, is how the novel explores the psyche of a boy isolated by racial difference. The schoolteachers’ casual racism is breathtaking: “I think I hear drums” and “Given her a taste for chocolate milk?” they joke between themselves.

Little surprise, then, that the children display a similar attitude, as when Ian makes a joke about blacks being good at sports. Teachers and pupils alike express disgust at Dee and O’s budding relationship.

Meanwhile, O ponders the politicized example set by his older sister, Sisi, who has alternately played up her Africanness and her African-American identity — wearing kente cloth and an Afro, or giving Black Power salutes. Between those extremes, he makes a surprising choice.

For all the parallels to the plot of “Othello,” this is an engrossing and ultimately convincing story of its own, with characters you’ll believe in and a tragic ending worthy of the Bard.

Tracy Chevalier’s new book is the latest in the Hogarth Shakespeare series of modern day retellings of classic Shakespeare plays. Telling the story of Othello in a more contemporary setting, New Boy was always going to be a bit edgier than some of the others that have preceded it.
It is Washington in the 1970s. When a new boy arrives at Dee’s school he stands out in the playground and immediately gets her attention. His dark skin and very smart clothes have immediately grabbed her attention. Dee is the most popular girl in the school so anyone that she approves of is instantly cool. Osei Kokote is the son of a diplomat and at his fifth school in as many years. The assimilation is a process that he is all too used to. Not everyone is happy that the black boy and the golden girl have become fast friends and Ian decides to put a spanner in the works and prise them apart.
Knowing the story of Othello you might be surprised that it is being retold from the point of view of four eleven year olds in a school yard. An environment where bullying, racism and betrayal are part of everyday life but here they are amped up and soon the school is torn apart by the consequences of their actions. It isn’t always the easiest story to read but it is an interesting modern take on the story itself.
Supplied by Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.
UK Publication Date: May 11 2017. 183 pages.
<a target="_blank" href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1781090319/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1781090319&linkCode=as2&tag=angelrevie-21&linkId=f5ebda5d41bfcd22b4d65be47a0e7d62">New Boy: Othello Retold (Hogarth Shakespeare)</a><img src="//ir-uk.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=angelrevie-21&l=am2&o=2&a=1781090319" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />

Othello is one of those Shakespeare works that I'm not overly familiar with, so I don't have a particular opinion on this novel as a reworking, I do however have an opinion on it as a novel...

Osei or 'O' is the new boy of the title. His care is entrusted to 'Dee', a sensible, smart and popular student. Osei is the first black child that the school has seen. Osei's colour doesn't bother Dee. She is perhaps more forward thinking than her friends, and maybe doesn't truly see his skin colour.

Dee however does see Osei in a positive light, and is almost instantly attracted to him.

Ian, is your standard playground bully. He is instantly way of Osei, and not just because of his colour. Some of the kids seem to genuinely warm to Osei and Ian worries that he is going to become more popular than he is, or at the very least take the playground attention away from him.

Ian's fears become reality as Osei proves himself to be a brilliant sportsman. Ian quickly becomes obsessed with bringing Osei down or ensuring that he leaves the school completely.

Meanwhile Dee is becoming obsessed with Osei for altogether different reasons. She is feeling a deep attraction towards him that she has never experienced before with a boy. She knows her Mother won't approve, but she doesn't care.

Osei is attracted to Dee too, but Ian tries to warn Osei off her. Not because he is interested in Dee, but why should the new boy be allowed to have the pick of any girl he wants? Especially when she is white?

Ian's obsession takes on a more sinister tone when he enlists the help of his ex-girlfriend to try and turn Dee against Osei. When it becomes clear that neither will turn against the other, Ian is forced to take matters in to his own hands - with devastating consequences.

This is a modern day telling of Othello, set in the 1970's Washington.
It works well as a modern version although I think the ages of the characters are a little young for the sexual innuendo. Having said that it shows racialism, jealousy, the desire to fit in etc very well.
I give it 3.5 stars

I think that the author had a difficult task on her hands making sense of Othello and translating it to a contemporary setting.

Othello becomes Osei , the son of a black diplomat who has attended several schools and it always the outsider. He arrives at the Washington school to much suspicion and racist abuse. (from teachers and fellow pupils) Desdemona/ Dee soon falls for him. However the Iago figure of Ian manipulates the playground situation (with a pencil case replacing the original plot device of a handkerchief) with dire consequences

Compressing the action to one day was one major problem for me, although Shakespeare's time frame is equally small. It just doesn't give enough scope for character development and makes the plot seem contrived.

Also I had to look up what age Sixth grade was. I found it hard to equate the characters thoughts and motivations with those of an eleven year old child. At least setting it in an earlier decade meant that social media etc didn't interfere with the plot.

Ian as the Iago figure does equate to the "motiveless malignity" of the original.

This book was strongest on the racism experienced by Osei. More interesting was his sister, off stage, who was involved in the Black Rights movement.

Each writer for the Hogarth Shakespeare series has their own challenges in re-interpreting the original plays and adapting them to the novel format. For me this book didn't work although the examination of racism is timely and pertinent.