Richard Platt’s Castle Diary – The Journal of Tobias Burgess is a year of medieval castle life for 7 year olds, told by the boy living it.<\/p>\n
Toby is about to turn eleven. He’s off to be a page at his uncle’s castle, and his mum has told him to keep a journal so he can tell her everything. So he does. EVERYTHING.<\/p>\n
He serves his aunt at dinner and drops half the food on the floor. He learns Latin from a chaplain who is very keen on the cane. He gets a proper horse, rides out on a boar hunt and still manages to miss the best bit. He’s the worst archer in the castle (until the day he’s better, when they just give him a bigger bow).<\/p>\n
It’s history from the inside. You learn how bread was baked and who looked after the wine. You find out what a garderobe was and who had to clean out underneath it (the Gong-Farmer, and nobody envies him). There’s a feast with a stuffed peacock and a “cockatrice” sewn together from half a big bird and half a piglet. Who knew?<\/p>\n
Toby is lovely company. He moans about fish days and itchy new clothes. He gets teased by the older pages and plots his revenge. He makes friends with a poacher called David, which turns out to matter a great deal.<\/p>\n
The language is old-fashioned on purpose. There are lots of “’tis” and “mayhap”, which is part of the fun but makes it quite a stretch for a 7 year old reading alone. It works really well read together.<\/p>\n
A few things to know. The boys are beaten at lessons and it’s treated as normal. There’s hunting, a pig slaughtered for winter (throat and all), a knight fatally hurt at the jousts and a man facing a very harsh punishment for poaching. The pages also call each other some old insults, and one of them looks uncomfortably like a modern racist word, so you may want to be ready for it.<\/p>\n
If your reader is always asking how people REALLY lived in castles, this is a great answer.<\/p>\n
If they’re keen for more castle life with a lot more jokes, try the World’s Worst Knight. Roderick is a squire who’d love you to think he’s a hero, and his diary starts with him scrubbing pigeon poo off the castle wall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Richard Platt’s Castle Diary – The Journal of Tobias Burgess is a year of medieval castle life for 7 year olds, told by the boy living it. Toby is about to turn eleven. He’s off to be a page at his uncle’s castle, and his mum has told him to keep a journal so he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":12081,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":9204,"lr_next_read_anchor":"the World's Worst Knight","lr_seo_hook":"An eleven-year-old page's year at his uncle's castle, in his own diary."},"book_tag":[20],"age_group":[19],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[837],"class_list":["post-7053","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-real-life-books","age_group-books-for-7-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-richard-platt"],"yoast_title":"Castle Diary – The Journal of Tobias Burgess by Richard Platt | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"An eleven-year-old page's year at his uncle's castle, in his own diary. For ages 7+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n