{"id":692,"date":"2006-02-09T20:33:56","date_gmt":"2006-02-10T01:33:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/?p=692"},"modified":"2006-02-25T11:33:20","modified_gmt":"2006-02-25T16:33:20","slug":"crispin-the-cross-of-lead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/2006\/02\/09\/crispin-the-cross-of-lead\/","title":{"rendered":"Crispin the Cross of Lead"},"content":{"rendered":"

2003 Newbery Medal Winner: Crispin the Cross of Lead, by Avi<\/p>\n\nThe Plot<\/b>
\nIn medieval England, a young serf known only as “Asta’s son” finds himself on the run after his mother’s death and an inexplicable accusation of theft. He meets up with Bear, a travelling entertainer who helps teach him the wayas of the world and how to survive outside the confines of his tiny village. The pair travel to a large town to attend to the possibly treasonous business of Bear and end up solving the minor mystery of why the boy has been declared an outlaw.<\/p>\n

My Thoughts<\/b>
\nI had been slow to start this book because the ugly brown cover and the stupid title really turned me off. I feared it would be dull and plodding, and when I did finally begin to read it, it seemed as if my fears were justified. The main character, Asta’s son, who later discovers his name to be Crispin, begins the book as a cringing, superstitious, passive fool, and as we spend our time in his thoughts, it was aggravating to read.<\/p>\n

But I can’t say that it isn’t a possibly realistic portrayal of how someone, starved and downtrodden all their lives, told God has made them this way for a reason, might think. And he does develop over the course of the book to a point where, if not exactly someone I was interested in reading more about, he’s at least tolerable.<\/p>\n

The book opens with the funeral of Crispin’s mother. Her death has left him alone in the world, and he is at a loss until circumstances force him down a path he wouldn’t have realized existed. In short order, he is on the road, everyone who was ever sympathetic to him either unavailable or dead. His ignorance and confusion dominate the next section, even as he meets up with Bear and starts to wake up to the wider world around him.<\/p>\n

I found Crispin’s development over the course of the book to be handled in a believable fashion. He doesn’t become super by the end of the book, which would have made it all silly, and he doesn’t continue to wallow in blissful ignorance either, which would have made it all pointless. The choices he makes are reasonable based on his background and the information that he has: when it’s revealed that both his parents were of noble blood, this idea is so far beyond the realm of his experience that exploting it beyond the immediate situation doesn’t even really occur to him. He is content to be no longer a serf, and as he can’t comprehend the idea of becoming a lord, he remains with Bear.<\/p>\n

My main gripe with the book is Crispin’s mother, who seems to have been an unbelievably passive and pathetic creature. Presumably abducted by Crispin’s father, there’s no evidence in the book that she ever attempted to escape or notify her own father of her whereabouts during all the years after. From what we’re told, she seems to have been fairly minimally supervised, and it might well have been possible for her to get information passed. Her decision to hide her background from her son has some logic to it, at least as long as he was too young to pretend he didn’t know, but by the time the book opens Crispin is of an age to prevaricate, and could certainly pretend he was unable to read if nothing else.\n<\/pracut>\n

Overall, while I can’t say this book inspired me to raptures, it was a solid enough story. The setting and point of view are what really made it stand out, as the middle ages are more often seen through the eyes of a royal or noble rather than one raised as a serf. I’d give it a 7\/10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2003 Newbery Medal Winner: Crispin the Cross of Lead, by Avi The Plot In medieval England, a young serf known only as “Asta’s son” finds himself on the run after his mother’s death and an inexplicable accusation of theft. He meets up with Bear, a travelling entertainer who helps teach him the wayas of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,25],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}