Innocence is complicated

If you're a kid, there are a few authors you need to quickly acquaint yourself with, because you will be tested on them when you're older. Lois Lowry, Elizabeth George Speare, Laura Ingalls Wilder... the list goes on. But if there's one author every kid growing up now should know, it's Avi.

Owner of a peculiar one-word penname, Avi has written around ninety books to date, on a vast variety of genres. There's mystery (Who Stole the Wizard of Oz?), American historical fiction (Nothing But The Truth, Don't You Know There's A War On?), animal novels in the style of Watership Down (Poppy), psychological thrillers (Never Mind)... and so on, and so on. And then there's the one that made Avi a Newbery winner -- Crispin: The Cross of Lead.

(By the way, it's not like an author to write a subtitle under a book without plans for a sequel, but it took Avi several years to get around to crafting another Crispin story. This book was, as most good kids' books are, intended to be read as a stand-alone piece.)

Crispin takes place in feudalistic England, where title character Crispin (usually known simply as "Asta's son") is given a death sentence upon the passing of his mother. Fleeing, he comes across a giant of a jester named Bear, and before you can say "MIMUS!", the two are off teaching each other about how to make one's way as a free man in such an oppressive society.

It's not really like Mimus, though (which I reviewed earlier in this blog). Crispin isn't a nobleman being brought down to earth by a common jester. Instead, we are handed a much more traditional jester in Bear: one whose purpose is to give a little more soul to every wretched thing around him. This is particularly necessary for Crispin, who, as a very devout Christian and very confused as to why he's being chased, is terrible at finding the courage to make his own decisions.

So far, so standard -- a classic tale of finding yourself. And according to my librarian, this isn't often considered Avi's best book. But hold on, here comes the good part -- Avi is a really good writer. I can't emphasize this enough. His descriptions are top-notch: here's his jester.

"Upon his head was a hat which seemed to have been split into two, like the points on a cock's comb. At the end of these points hung bells. Moreover, the flaps of his hat came own along both sides of his face, encircling it, then tied below, making his cheeks plump."

Relating to the boy's own experiences in the first line, looking at the jester's hatstraps in a new way in the third... Avi uses the material to its full advantage. There is little cliche material here.

Also, I found the jester to be infinitely quotable. "It's a thing I've noticed," he says at one point, "that the greater a man's - or boy's - ignorance of the world, the more certain he is that he sits in the center of that world."

But that's not all that makes Avi's writing so good. These stock characters we're seemingly presented with get really interesting. Crispin, so unerringly tied to his faith and so certain he doesn't have a soul, clashes against a jester whose only motive is to be free. Furthermore, these two characters grow and develop in our eyes really well over the course of the novel. We gain knowledge about their secrets as the book progresses, and at the same time, they come up with unobvious ways to get out of tricky situations, although they seem perfectly suited to their characters.

My one major complaint is that authors, including Avi, really seem to like describing 14th century England. I don't blame them - it's my favorite place to visit in books, but really, once Crispin enters the big city, he can't take his eyes, or Avi's descriptive pen, off the many things in the streets. I understand Crispin's wonder at the new world, but I would have appreciated some brevity.

So... now what? I've said all I need to say, I guess, so it's time to wrap this up. Should you read this book? Oh, absolutely, and most of the other things Avi's written (see that list I gave you above). Please don't give your kids those hundreds of Star Wars novelizations. Avi really respects the mind of a child, and gives them some complicated ideas to latch on to -- complicated enough to get older readers (like me) thinking hard about our place in society.