Library Journal Review

As the title suggests, this entertaining volume from Atkinson (Wrong Hands) takes more than 100 classics and condenses them into brief, one-sentence summaries, each featured with a humorous, full-color illustration. These often accurate interpretations of the original texts simplify things to an absurd degree. For example, Peter Pan is described as "Some Kids and a Crocodile pester an amputee"; Hamlet as "Guy with daddy issues mopes and whines about who to kill." By and large, these are rather funny takes on stories, with fairly basic gags. However, unlike what the title suggests, you probably do need some familiarity with the work to get the joke, although plenty of references to pop culture make it so even non-English majors will enjoy. Verdict A fun book with a dry sense of humor that will appeal to fans of single-panel cartoons. Lit lovers who don't mind some good-natured poking at their favorite reads will be amused as well.-Lucy Roehrig, Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.