Richie's Picks: Great Books for Children and Young Adults

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"C'mon people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now."
-- Dino Valenti (1963)

"The world listens carefully to the words of any pope. And it is tragic and dangerous when one sows pain, either deliberately or carelessly." --New York Times editorial

"He has a dark mentality that comes from the darkness of the Middle Ages...It looks like an effort to revive the mentality of the Crusades." --Turkish Parliamentary leader Salih Kapusuz

C'mon. Let's be honest. If the Pope's priorities centered around tolerance and world peace, would he be quoting some 14th century Byzantine emperor or would he be quoting and singing some Sixties peace and brotherhood songs?

As evidenced by the endless stream of propaganda -- from that which led to the Crusades up through that which causes worldwide tension this weekend -- there has always been a wealth of misinformation and fear being spread about Islam. And it was similarly the case in the 1680s London world in which Meg Moore lives.

Meg Moore was twelve when I first met her in Katherine Sturtevant's AT THE SIGN OF THE STAR, which was published back in 2000. Now, in A TRUE AND FAITHFUL NARRATIVE, Meg is sixteen. In the first book we come to know Meg as the only surviving child of a mother who repeatedly bred (as it was referred to at the time) before dying in childbirth.

Meg is an unusual young woman for her time. Her father is a London bookseller and Meg, who regularly works with her father and who reads everything she can get her hands on, has high hopes of always having the bookstore. Unfortunately, her father takes another wife who begins successfully producing offspring -- including male heirs -- causing Meg's childhood dream to go flying out the window. AT THE SIGN OF THE STAR concludes with Meg's deciding that she wants to be the rarest of seventeenth century London creatures -- a female author.

Four years later in 1681, in A TRUE AND FAITHFUL NARRATIVE, headstrong Meg is at the age where those of her gender are typically being bartered away by their fathers. might there be a way for Meg to end up both married and in a bookstore? Or might it be possible to become published despite the fact that any notion of his daughter being a female author is well beyond what Meg's relatively tolerant father is willing to abide?

Shortly before Meg's best friend Anne Gosse (daughter of a wine merchant) is to be married, Anne's big brother Edward stops by to purchase some reading materials. It turns out he is leaving on an extended business trip to the Mediterranean.

" 'You must bring Anne a splendid wedding present when you return,' I said as I opened the ledger. 'Only think of the treasures you can buy for her in the Mediterranean!'
He pulled off his lace-trimmed gloves and laid them on the counter. 'It will likely be a year, perhaps two, before I come again to England,' he said as he brought out his purse.
" 'To be sure. I had not thought. Well, you must send her something, then. Venetian lace, perhaps. Anne would love that.'
"He fished out his shillings, and put them into my open palm. His fingers were warm and soft. Before I could curl my hands around the coins he laid his own palm over mine, trapping the money between our two hands. 'And what shall I bring you, Meg?' "It was then that I remembered Anne's words, be kind to him, and understood them for the first time. My mouth fell open and I was flooded with horror, for it was clear that he offered me a courtship gift. I knew not what to say, and it is a fault of mine that I cannot be still at such moments. Instead, the wrong words fly from my tongue. " 'Why, nothing, unless -- yes, I so wish we had a narrative to rival Okeley's that we might sell at the sign of the Star. Can you manage to be captured by pirates, and enslaved in North Africa?' "

Sure enough, when Anne and Edward's father dies unexpectedly and Edward hastily arranges a return to London, he is captured by pirates and enslaved in North Africa. And it is there that Edward learns that so much of the common knowledge that he knew of Islamic culture was actually misconception. When after his extended enslavement Edward finally returns home it is Meg who is given the opportunity by Edward to write the narrative. It is Meg who will be faced with those misconceptions, and Meg who must balance what she knows will sell with being a writer worthy of the primary source material to which she is so fortunate to have access.

A TRUE AND FAITHFUL NARRATIVE is fascinating and enlightening. Through the eyes of Meg Moore and Edward Gosse, Katherine Sturtevant offers us the sights, smells, and culture of Reconstruction London, as well as the exotic splendor of Algiers. And after getting to observe Meg's thought processes as a writer, readers might well wonder the next time they read an article or watch a television report as to what parts of the real story have been included or excluded for the sake of entertainment or propoganda value.

Richie Partington
http://richiespicks.com
BudNotBuddy@aol.com