July 27, 2004
The Winter Hare
At long last we come to the end of the series of 4th-6th grade Middle Ages historical fiction. And a fitting end, for after all those tales of the open road and pilgrimages and minstrels, this time we find ourselves under seige in a castle.
Goodman, Joan Elizabeth. The Winter Hare. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston: 1996. 255 pages. ISBN: 0395785693.
Twelve-year-old Will Belet, known to most as "Rabbit" wants more than anything to grow up to be a noble knight. Sent to serve in his uncle, the Earl of Oxford, as a page, Will soon realizes that things are much more complicated than he thought. The story unfolds in 1140, with England divided between the supporters of King Stephen of Blois (reigning king/usurper) and those of the Empress Matilda (daughter of King Henry, widow of Prince William), and Will gets caught up in the battles, sieges, intrigues and adventures. The book is filled with much of the same wonderful detail we've seen in the other books about life in the middle ages, castles, healing, monasteries, the role of women and peasants, etc.
As the Booklist review says, "A good book to recommend to those who loved Marguerite De Angeli's A Door in the Wall (1989) or Elizabeth J. Gray's Adam of the Road (1942)."
And now on to developing library programming around all these books!