Books with author Holland K Crossley

It is 1199 and young Arthur de Caldicot is waiting impatiently to grow up and become a knight. One day his friend's father, Merlin, gives him a shining piece of obsidian, and his life becomes entwined with that of his namesake, the Arthur whose story he sees unfold in the stone. In this many-layered novel, King Arthur is seen as a mysterious presence influencing not just one time and place, but many. The 100 short chapters are almost like snapshots, not only of the mythic tales of King Arthur, but the earthy, uncomfortable reality of the Middle Ages. Written in the direct, open voice of a real boy living in a time of uncertainty about the future, this story touches on the issues of war and peace, social inequity, religion, reason, and superstition.

The irresistible Gatty discovers that "Every step that you take on pilgrimage is a step toward paradise" in this gorgeously written adventure by master medieval chronicler Kevin Crossley-Holland.Gatty is a field girl on a manor. She has never seen busy London or the bright Channel, the snowy Alps of France or the boats in the Venetian sea. She has not sung in the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem or prayed at the manger in Bethlehem -- or been kidnapped, or abandoned, or kissed, or heartbroken. But all these things will change. As Gatty journeys with Lady Gwyneth and a prickly new family of pilgrims across Europe to the Holy Land, Kevin Crossley-Holland reveals a medieval world as rich and compelling as the world of today it foresees -- and, in Gatty, a character readers will never forget.