Winner of the 1929 Newbery Medal
For well over thirty years, Eric P. Kelly’s Newbery Award winner has brought the color and romance of ancient times to young readers. Today, The Trumpeter of Krakow is an absorbing and dramatic as when it was first published in 1928.
There was something about the Great Tarnov Crystal...Wise men spoke of it in hushed tones. Others were ready to kill for it. Now a murderous Tartar chief is bent on possessing it. But young Joseph Charnetski was bound by an ancient oath to protect the jewel at all costs.
When Joseph and his family seek refuge in medieval Krakow, they are caught up in the plots and intrigues of alchemists, hypnotists, and a dark messenger of evil. Will Joseph be able to protect the crystal, and the city, from the plundering Tartars?---from the publisher
224 pages 978-0689715716 Ages 8-12
Keywords: medieval times, Poland, adventure, Europe, historical fiction, Newbery Medal, 8 year old, 9 year old, 10 year old, 11 year old, 12 year old, classic
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Other reviews:
The 1929 Newbery winner, this novel is set in Poland, 1461. Joseph Charnetski, a fifteen-year-old, travels with his family to Krakow after their home and fields in the Ukraine were destroyed. The family befriends a wise scholar and goes to live in the house of an alchemist and his daughter. Joseph becomes a watchman in the Church of Our Lady Mary. In the tower there, he plays on the hour the Heynal, a theme that is traditionally broken off in mid-note out of respect for a brave Polish lad who was killed by an arrow while playing it as Tartars advanced. The family is shadowed and accosted several times by a mysterious rogue, who turns out to be a dreaded Ukranian warlord who originally drove them from their home and is out to steal a priceless treasure which, to Joseph’s surprise, his father is guarding for the king.---from Ensiform on Goodreads
