Girls of the Hamlet Club (The Abbey Girls, #1)

This is the first in a long series, some 60+ books, of a series of girls who are students in a day/boarding school in the west of England.

The Hamlet Club, formed in the first book in the series, Girls of the Hamlet Club, was set up to combat snobbery in the school. Underlying the club’s overt activities of folk-dancing and rambles was its motto ‘To be or not to be’, and its badge, the Whiteleaf Cross. These were both symbols of deeper meanings. The motto, deliberately using a quote from the Shakespeare play Hamlet is taken to mean to make the right choice, usually duty above self-interest, when it arises. Throughout the Abbey Series the various main characters come up against this choice and its consequences, and are shown growing and maturing through making difficult decisions. The badge, taken from a landmark local to the area in which the series is set, is also symbolic—as is any cross—of sacrifice.