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Junior
Hodder Children's Books
Paperback £5.99, ISBN: 0340850825
Reviewed by Cindy Jefferies
[Armadillo 5.1 Spring 2003]
Bridget Crowley's description of the sights and sounds of an English cathedral city in the late thirteenth century echoes Bruegel's 'Fight Between Carnival and Lent'. Here are the crowds, the coarseness and brutality we see in that painting, as well as the jousting between excess and deprivation.
In telling the story of young Peg-leg John, she also tells of the Christians' fear and hatred of the Jews at that time. Peg has a strong sense of right and wrong, and is angered by the racism of his own people. Being marked out as a cripple, he shares some of the Jews isolation, and when the Jews are accused of murder he sets out to find the real culprit. The action rolls along crisply, and it ends in a very satisfying manner. Some big issues are raised. A would be pederast appears, as well as disability, and racism, but each is handled deftly and none interrupt the story's flow. An excellent read for top junior/lower secondary children.