Young Arthur

·         Title:  Young Arthur

·         Author:  Robert D. San Souci

·         Illustrator:  Jamichael Henterly

·         Publisher:  Bantam Doubleday Dell publishing Group, Inc. 

·         Copyright:  1997

·         ISBN #:  0-385-32268-2

·         Genre:  Folklore

·         Library Location:  The Canyon Area Library

·         Summary:

“Long ago, as King Uther and Merlin watched, a fiery dragon-shape blazed among the stars over Stonehenge, foretelling the birth of Arthur, the greatest king of all…”  This book starts with a sign and a prophecy about the birth of a great king.  Once Arthur is born though his mother dies and his father is in such great despair that Merlin fears someone will harm Arthur, so he takes him and gives him to Sir Ector without telling Ector of the baby’s identity.  King Uther, Arthur’s father passes away because of poisoned water from his enemies and the country is thrown into turmoil.  Some years later Arthur’s adoptive brother, Kay, is knighted and offers to take Arthur as his apprentice and at his adoptive fathers insistence he accepts.  At this time Merlin places a sword in a stone in the center of London and whoever can pull the sword out is the rightful new ruler, only Merlin knows that it will be Arthur.  A tournament is set up in London as well and Kay and Ector are both entered, but in all of the excitement Arthur forgets to pack a sword for Kay.  Not wanting to ride all the way home and miss the tournament, Arthur sees the sword in the stone and takes it with a plane to put it back after the tournament.  Once word gets out Arthur is quickly made king, to the dismay of many knights, and taken to Wales for his coronation.  It is here that many of the distort knights attack and Arthur battles valiantly, but his sword is broken.  Merlin uses his magic to take him out of the castle surrounded by enemies and in the center of a lake Arthur procures Excalibur.  Merlin then uses him magic to take Arthur back where he concurs his enemies and begins building Camelot and the Knights of the Round Table.

·         Personal Comments:

The nice part about this story is that it only focuses on one aspect of King Arthurs life, his youth.  It also mentions some of him becoming king, but in the book he is only sixteen when this happens, so this part of the story is still about his youth.  I thoroughly enjoyed this adaptation of the King Arthur legend.  It is a nice change to here details about his adoptive family and life as a teenager before he knows of his lineage and before he becomes a legend.  You do not always hear much about how he came to live with Sir Ector or what kind of a father he was or brother that Kay was, so it is a nice change to hear about that part of his story.

·         Suggested Use in Classroom:

This story is fun to read especially because it is about Arthur’s boyhood when you always hear so much about him as king.  The story does however not mention much of what happens with Arthur between the time that he is a baby and hidden my Merlin for his safety, and when he is a teen and an apprentice to Kay.  A fun usage of this book might be for students to write their own story and fill in the gapes of what happens when Arthur is but a young boy.  One of the stipulations though would have to be that the students would have to be completely creative and not use any part of the story that is already mainstream, i.e. Merlin turning both himself and Arthur into squirrels or birds.