Crusade

Elizabeth Laird's Crusade is a historical adventure for 11 year olds that follows two boys who've been brought up to see each other as the enemy.

What happens

Salim lives in Acre, a busy port on the Mediterranean. His father is a merchant, Salim has a limp from a fever he had as a toddler, and his day is already going badly (spilt ink on his father's new brocade means a beating tonight). Then the bazaar starts shutting early. A Frankish army is on its way.

His father has plans of his own. By the next morning Salim has been handed over as apprentice to Dr Musa, a rumpled old Jewish doctor he met the evening before. Off he goes with a bundle of clothes and his mother's honey cakes. He's furious. Wouldn't you be?

Then the story jumps to an English village. Adam is fourteen, and he's walking behind his mother's body on the way to the churchyard. The priest, who wouldn't come when she was dying, tells him she'll burn in hell for it. So Adam spends his last penny on a bottle of holy dust from Jerusalem. You can probably guess how honest the pedlar turns out to be.

Adam is put to work in the castle kennels, and from there both boys are pointed towards the same war. Adam will go with the Crusaders. Salim's new job takes him into Saladin's camp.

What makes it so good is that you get both sides. The preacher in Acre calls the Franks barbarians, and Adam sets off itching to fight the infidel. Because your reader gets to know each boy from the inside, the hatred they've been handed feels very real and very wrong at the same time. It's a brilliant one to talk about together.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

Adam's story opens on his mother's funeral, and her death the night before is described. Salim's father hits him and his brother calls him a cripple. Grown-ups say some ugly things about people of other faiths. These opening chapters stop short of the fighting, but a war is where it's all heading, so it suits a reader who's ready for something serious.

What to read next

If they want more of Elizabeth Laird's history, try The Prince Who Walked With Lions. It's about the young son of an emperor in Abyssinia, looking back on the day a British army marched on his father's mountain home.