King of the Middle March

Format:

Book

Title:

King of the Middle March

Author:

Crossley-Holland, Kevin author

ISBN:

9780439266000

9780439266017

Edition:

First American edition.

Publication:

New York : Arthur A. Levine Books, 2004.

Physical Description:

409 pages : maps ; 24 cm.

Series title(s):

Arthur trilogy ;

Number in series:

BK. 3.

General Note:

Sequel to: At the crossing-places.

Contents:

Sword and Scimitar -- God's Army -- Hover, Then Swoop -- Sea-Feast -- Chin-pie and a Miserable Wood Louse -- Galleys and Transports -- Glass Venetians -- However Hard We Try -- Nothing is Easy -- Fighting-Fear -- Enemies of God -- Of the Body, of the Heart -- Something Very Nasty -- Catching Fever -- A Mother to Find -- Sarachen Traders -- My Shining Promise -- A Little March Miracle -- Winnie's Letter -- The Greatest Name of any Knight -- Wax and Diamond -- Merlin, Questioning -- Sir Arthur -- Still Burning -- At the Stork -- Lifeblood -- At Last -- Instruments of the Devil -- Your True Believer -- The Wheel of Fortune -- The Youngest and the Oldest -- Seeing Eye to Eye -- Deep Waters -- To Lead You and Look After You -- Cheeks and Strutting Peacocks -- Not Asking the Question -- The Lesser of Two Evils -- Love and Lemon -- Embarkation -- The Vermilion Galley -- Heaven's Messengers -- Disaster -- Bleeding by Night and Day -- So Many Tongues -- Two Balls -- Lacrimae Rerum -- More Dead Than Alive -- The Poisoned Apple -- Accusations -- A Bag of Winds -- Heels over Head -- Old Wounds -- Sir Urry -- Night-Lights -- Zara -- Tact and Tactics -- Behind Our Backs -- Feet First -- Gossip-Wind -- Ready to Die -- A Little, Flailing, Biting, Whimpering Thing -- Thrown -- Grim and Ugly and Vile -- Into the Flames -- The Dark-Eyed Doll -- Divided in Itself -- This Is Going to Hurt -- Jihad -- Miserere Mei -- The Spirit-Garden -- Lady, We Thank You -- The Heart-in-Waiting -- Ivory and Gold and Obsidian -- Nothing but Pawns -- An Olive Branch -- The Pope's Letter -- Byzantine Eyes -- Combat -- Deserters -- Half a Horse Blanket -- Blood-Blade -- A Little We Die -- Hundreds and Hundreds of Miles -- Nothing Lasts -- Give Them Hope -- Alive! -- By Fair Means or Foul -- Boy-Girl -- My Own Son -- Head-Line and Heart-Line -- Great Beds, and Other Wonders -- Wail as You Will -- In My Blood and Bone -- At Sea -- Hiraeth -- A Path of Feathers -- Vessels of the Spirit -- In Your Green Care -- The Voice of an Angel -- Knowledge of Good and Evil -- The Most Bitter Day -- I Just Don't Know! -- Down to the Water -- Home -- Where Are You Today I Keep Wondering -- Mother Slim and Sister Grace -- Digging -- The King Who Was and Will Be -- Such High Happiness -- My Mother -- Each One of Us -- The King in Yourself -- Calendar.

Summary:

Arthur de Caldicot, on his way to becoming a man, witnesses the horrors of the Fourth Crusade in Venice and Zara, as well as the downfall of King Arthur's court, in his seeing stone.

Reading Level:

Ages: 12-15.

Grades: 7-9.

Program Information:

Accelerated Reader AR MG 4.2 12.0 Accelerated Reader Quiz #82290.

Reading Counts 6-8 7.2 18 36203.

Lexile 680L.

F&P Z.

Personal Subject:

Arthur, King-Juvenile fiction.

Arthur, King-Fiction.

Arthur, King

Subject(s):

Children's literature.

Identity -- Fiction.

Magic -- Fiction.

Middle Ages -- Fiction.

Great Britain -- History -- Richard I, 1189-1199 -- Fiction.

Great Britain -- History -- John, 1199-1216 -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

Great Britain -- History -- Richard I, 1189-1199 -- Fiction.

Great Britain -- History -- John, 1199-1216 -- Fiction.

Genre:

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... McMinnville Public Library	Crossley-Holland, K.	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Newberg Public Library	TEEN CROSSLEY-HOLLAND	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Kevin Crossley-Holland's award-winning Arthur trilogy comes to its triumphant and moving close.

Arthur de Caldicot waits eagerly in Venice for the start of the Fourth Crusade. But it's now when Arthur's future should be clearest that he feels the most doubt. Jealousies and greed rive the Crusade, leading him to question its true mission. Back in England, his engagement to Winnie remains uncertain, while his search for his birth mother has been stymied by his vicious father. And his seeing stone shows him the last days of King Arthur's court--a great dream destroyed, but also a glorious legend rising from the ruins. Likewise in this book, Arthur becomes a man worthy of his kingly name.

Author Notes

Kevin Crossley-Holland is a well-known poet, a prize-winning children's author, and a translator.

Crossley-Holland has translated Beowulf and The Exeter Book of Riddles from the Anglo-Saxon. He has collaborated with composers Nicola Lefanu (The Green Children and The Wildman), Rupert Bawden (The Sailor's Tale), Sir Arthur Bliss, William Mathias, and Stephen Paulus.

Crossley-Holland's book The Seeing Stone won the Guardian Children's Fiction Award, the Smarties Prize Bronze Medal, and the Tir na n-Og Award. The trilogy has won critical acclaim and been translated into twenty-five languages. His recent and forthcoming books are The Hidden Roads: A Memoir of Childhood, Bracelet of Bones and his new and selected poems The Mountains of Norfolk.

Crossley-Holland often lectures abroad on behalf of the British Council and offers poetry and prose workshops and talks on the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings, King Arthur, heroines and heroes, and myth, legend and folk-tale.

Kevin Crossley-Holland is an Honorary Fellow of St Edmund Hall, Oxford, a patron of the Society for Storytelling, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He lives on the north Norfolk coast in East Anglia with his wife and children.

(Bowker Author Biography)

Reviews (5)

School Library Journal Review

Gr 7 Up-A glorious and uplifting conclusion to the trilogy. As before, Arthur de Caldicot tells his story, which this time finds the teen on an island off the coast of Venice waiting for a Crusade to begin. He is full of both wonder at his surroundings and the multinational band of men and anxiety over what is expected of him. Arthur is knighted and takes his oath to defend God seriously, but he is conflicted to learn that the Saracens are educated and devout people not unlike the Europeans. At the forefront of his thoughts is Merlin's admonition to keep asking questions. When money and politics wreak havoc with the plans for the Crusade, Arthur becomes disillusioned, and he faces a crisis of faith when the Venetians bring the Crusaders into an internal conflict to siege the city of Zara. Concurrently, Sir Stephen, Arthur's lord, is wounded and must be taken home to England, and because of duty, Arthur takes him and leaves the Crusade. Parallel to Arthur's own quest is that of legendary King Arthur and the Grail knights, whom Arthur watches in his seeing stone. He watches as Camelot is thrown into chaos, and he learns that not all battle ends in glory and that treachery exists even there. In a return home at Easter that is full of symbolism, Arthur finds answers to lifelong questions. Whether readers are familiar with the two previous Arthur sagas or not, they will be gratified by the majestic resolution to the parallel stories of Sir Arthur's coming of age and King Arthur's demise.-Cheri Dobbs, Detroit Country Day Middle School, Beverly Hills, MI (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publisher's Weekly Review

Third in the Arthur trilogy, King of the Middle March by Kevin Crossley-Holland begins amidst attempts to launch a European crusade against the Saracens. Young Arthur-who views the actions of the legendary king through the magic stone of the launch title, The Seeing Stone-struggles to understand why Saracens are sworn enemies and to deal with his tempestuous father. In a starred review of the series debut, PW called Arthur a "clever, ethical and passionate hero." (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Horn Book Review

(Middle School) Arthur de Caldicot, thirteenth-century namesake of the legendary King Arthur (The Seeing Stone, rev. 11/01; At the Crossing Places, rev. 11/02), is now sixteen, on his way to Jerusalem to join the Fourth Crusade. His small company of Englishmen has arrived in Venice, where they are stalled by unpaid bills and Venetian politics. For Arthur, the crusade is ""an act of devotion...a war against the enemies of God""; for others, it's ""company. Adventure. A woman or two. That's all."" Arthur learns that war is a complex mix of gore and brotherhood, nobility and vileness; his musings on the subject are thought-provoking but never become didactic. Paralleling Arthur's experience is the saga of King Arthur -- now, as the young Arthur watches it in his obsidian seeing stone, coming to a sad and ignominious close. Crossley-Holland has written a novel of extraordinary richness, packed with event and color and texture. As a wise nun tells Arthur, ""You care and think and feel, you are awake to the world,"" and Crossley-Holland transfers that vividness of experience to readers. Considered as a final installment of a trilogy, the book is even more of an accomplishment: it satisfactorily resolves all plot lines while simultaneously releasing Arthur into a somewhat unpredictable future. But whatever happens, as Arthur returns to England ready to take his place as lord of Catmole (or Camelot?), readers can be sure that Arthur has learned enough from his seeing stone not to repeat its mistakes, and that he will forever be ""awake to the world."" (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.

Kirkus Review

Concluding a trilogy that began with The Seeing Stone (2001) and continued with At the Crossing-Places (2002), this handsome, beautifully written volume weaves several threads into a magnificent whole. Young Arthur de Caldicot journeys on the Fourth Crusade in 1201, observes the spectacle of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table in the seeing stone Merlin gave him, and returns home, having grown into his name, as Merlin has said he must. It's a rich and wise tale, full of moral questioning: Is poverty in God's plan? Are all Saracens evil? Do innocent and helpless people always get caught up in war? Mentors along the way help Arthur to see and learn, and as Arthur returns to his inherited estate Catmole, curiously similar in name to Camelot, he knows he must create a humane fellowship among the people of his manor. Superb writing, prodigious research, a wealth of detail, and fine bookmaking make these the best tales of the Middle Ages for young readers, an epic they will hate to see end. (cast of characters, author's note, word list, calendar) (Fiction. 9-14) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

Gr. 6-9. This third volume in the trilogy that began with The Seeing Stone 0 (2001) opens with Arthur, Lord Stephen, and thousands of other crusaders camped near Venice, awaiting the building of a fleet of ships and the arrival of money to pay for them. Eventually, their leaders agree to help Venice recapture the Christian city of Zara in exchange for the vessels that will take them to the Holy Land, and Arthur sees horrors that he is powerless to stop. All this is mirrored in the old story of King Arthur, which young Arthur watches unfold at intervals in his magical stone. Just as the promise of Camelot dissolves into treachery, chaos, and death, so the boy's world seems fatally flawed by greed, brutality, and human frailty. Arthur's response to his fellow crusaders' violence and the questions he raises about religion, morality, and war resonate not only in the two worlds of the novel but also in our own. The traditional Arthurian story comes to its inevitable end as Arthur the narrator returns home to England to take up his new life, fully cognizant of a world full of evil but also filled with promise. --Carolyn Phelan Copyright 2004 Booklist