2015 MG Fiction #Cybils Award Winner: The Blackthorn Key by Kevin Sands

It's 1665 and Christopher Rowe, 14, is a pretty lucky boy.  The former orphan from Cripplegate Orphanage was picked by apothecary Master Benedict Blackthorn to be his apprentice.  But he is learning how to do more than just make medicinals for the people of London, he's taught Latin and is also begin trained to easily solve puzzles, ciphers and codes.

Master Blackthorn is very pleased with Christopher's work, and has treated him very well.  And in fact, instead of beating him as most other apothecaries would, rather his esteem for Christopher is heightened when he learns that his apprentice is able to decoded the recipe for making gunpowder.  

But now, apothecaries all over London are turning up dead, gruesomely murdered, and Christopher fears for Master Benedict, especially when he is attacked on his way home one night.   Rumor has it that the killings are being done by a group called the Cult of the Archangel, but before Christopher can ask Master Benedict about it, the apothecary suddenly begins yelling at him about a mistake, hits Christopher across the face and sends him on a meaningless errand.  But when Christopher returns, he finds the apothecary shop ransacked, and his master dead.

Confused and crushed by Master Benedict's sudden change in behavior and subsequent death, Christopher finds himself without a home and apprenticeship, and facing a very uncertain future.  But after finding a coded message from his master in the shop's ledger book, the last line of which admonished Christopher to tell no one about it, he is determined to solve Master Benedict's murder, luckily, with the help of his only friend Tom,

One of my guilty pleasures has always been reading Medieval mysteries and this well researched debut novel ranks right up there with the best of them.  Not only that, but it is full of my other guilty pleasure - cryptology.   Mix together a personable, clever main character, a faithful and trustworthy best friend, plus realistic descriptions of London in the mid 1600s, and you have my ideal novel.

The main part of the mystery takes place over six day,s beginning on Thursday, May 28, 1665, Ascension Day to Tuesday, June 2, 1665, The Feast of St. Erasmus, the Protector.  These are an important 6 days, having to do with the restoration of the English monarchy.  The (fictional) Cult of the Archangel rejects the idea of the monarchy and wants the power of God Himself through alchemy and given the deaths of so many apothecaries, would stop at nothing to get it.   This is what Christopher and Tom are up against, and to make matter worse, Christopher is suspected of killing Master Benedict.

While I didn't think the historical part of the novel was explained satisfactorily as the could have been (I had to look up a few things), the codes were and I think any one who enjoys codes will really like that aspect of the novel. But the absolute best part of The Blackthorn Key was that it didn't rely of fantasy to create an gripping, skillfully written novel. (not that's there's anything wrong with speculative fiction, it's just so prevalent in Medieval stories, and realistic fiction is nice for a change).

This is a serious novel but not without some humor.  Tom has a bunch of sisters who seem to be quite taken with Christopher.   And Tom's mother is a Mollie Weasley-type in her kindness towards the orphan Christopher.  Tom's father, so quick to hit children, his own and Christopher, is a good example of how abusive adults were towards children, considering them more a property than human.  And the descriptions of London's streets is so vivid, you can practically smell the stench of garbage and human waste wafting up from the page.

The Blackthorn Key is a definite winner.

This book is recommended for readers age 9+
This book was borrowed from the NYPL

My Name is Blessing and Hope Springs both by Eric Walters, illustrated by Eugenie Fernandes

 My Name is Blessing is the story of Muthini, a young Kenyan boy living with his grandmother and her eight other grandchildren.  And, though they are poor and often hungry, there is a lot of love in Muthini's home.

The youngest of the cousins, Muthini had been born with no fingers on his left hand and only two on his right hand, and so his mother had given him a name that meant suffering.

One day, his grandmother took Muthini on a long walk to a place where he could hear children laughing and playing behind a gate.  Inside were happy, healthy, well-dressed children, boys and girls.  Muthini became self-conscious of his tattered clothing, his bare feet and his hands.

Here was a home for kids, and although it was very painful for his grandmother to do so, she asked if there might be a place for Muthini, she was just too old and poor to give him much now.  Gabriel, whose home it was, welcomed them, and asked to see Muthini's hands.  Then he told there there was no place in his home, "not as Muthini, not as suffering, but as Baraka, as a blessing" there is definitely a place.

Which pleased his grandmother, who had always seen Muthini as a blessing anyway and she can visit him as often as possible.

This is a simple, straightforward story,  There is not one indication in the portrayal of the grandmother that giving up her youngest grandchild isn't one of the most painful decisions she has ever had to make, but loving him like she does, she knows it is for the best.  Her resources are so severely limited.

But this is also a story about hope and the future, and about how a disability and the child's shameful attitude towards it can be changed under the right circumstances.  Muthini had always hidden his hands out of habit, but the idea that this will be different in the future, is quite clear.

The wonderful expressive illustrations by artist Eugenie Fernandes are done in a earth-tone palette of acrylics, with soft yellows, blues, browns and greens throughout, evocative of the African Savannah, where Kenya is located.   Fernandes also captures the full range of feelings and emotions experienced by Muthini, his grandmother and Gabriel.

There are five pages of back matter about the real Baraka and his grandmother, giving information about which tribe they belong to, the conditions of their home and what life is like for the children who come to live the home (called Creation of Hope) founded with the purpose of creating a better future for the children Mbooni region of Kenya (where Baraka comes from).  The home/school that is the Creation of Hope is a project that author Eric Walters is very involved in (you can find out more by clicking the link).

In Hope Springs, returns to Kenya to tell the story of Boniface.  Boniface live in an orphanage with many other children, and each child has certain chores to do everyday.  Boniface's chore to to go down the mountain with other children and collect water in containers at a little spring some distance away.

But there has been a drought in Kenya and the other people at the spring don't want to share the water with the orphanage, tossing their water containers aside.

Luckily, a well was being dug for the orphanage, but sadly, it was taking a long time.  Each day after school, Boniface raced over to see how the well was coming along.  Finally, one day, the well was deep enough and water starts gushing into it.  The orphanage would at last have all the water they needed.

But Boniface wasn't satisfied.  He went to the orphanage's houseparents, Henry and Ruth, and asked if it would be possible to dig another well by the little spring with the leftover materials.  And so with everyone helping, a second well was dug, providing enough water for the very same people that had refused to share with Boniface.

Both Walters and Fernandes return to the successful format of their book, My Name is Blessing in this wonderful story of kindness, sharing and community.  Boniface lives also lives in a Creation of Hope orphanage similar to the one Muthini was taken to by his grandmother.  Like Muthini's story, Hope Springs is also based on a true story.

Walters manages to tell the story of the wells in an entertaining way.  It is a feat of good writing to be able to tell a story in an entertaining manner while, at the same time, educating the reader about the importance of water where is it scarce and showing how an act of kindness can change a community's life and attitude without sounding preachy or making it didactic.

Fernandes returns to her earth-tone palette of browns, blues, greens and yellows in her lovely acrylic illustrations.

At the back of the Hope Springs, are a number of pages about the real Boniface, the problem of drought and the lack of water in Kenya and the work being done to help alleviate this situation.

Hope Springs and My Name is Blessing are excellent companion books and make thoughtful, inspiring read alouds, though given the subject matter they are really picture books for older readers.

Eric Walters has written over 92 books, including novels for kids of all ages and topics, yet he still finds  time to remain active in the Creation of Hope project.

My Name is Blessing and Hope Springs are recommended for readers age 7+
My Name is Blessing was borrowed from the NYPL
Hope Springs was an EARC received from NetGalley

The Midwife's Apprentice by Karen Cushman

The middle ages has always held a great deal of appeal for me, so I decided to revisit an old favorite.  The Midwife's Apprentice tells the story of a young girl who has no name, no family, no home and not future.  All she knows is getting through today.  She is called Dung Beetle by the more fortunate villagers because she often sleeps in a dung heap to keep warm, and eats of of a garbage heap that never satisfies her gnawing hunger.

How Beetle ended up like this is unknown to her, she has not memory other than that of being homeless.   But one day, she is woken from her dung heap sleep by a sharp faced, sharp voiced woman, who is the village midwife.  In need of an apprentice, she takes Beetle home and over time teaches her to do the more unpleasant tasks associated with the job of delivering babies.

Beetle is smart and a quick learner, even though the midwife, Jane Sharp, always puts her down and tells her how stupid she is.  Jane never lets Beetle into a house where she is delivering a baby, the better to keep her ignorant of how it is done.  But little by little, Beetle learns.  First, she helps a village boy, Will Russet, deliver his cows twins calves.  Than she has an opportunity to successfully deliver a woman's baby, using what she learned from Will Russet's calves.  But when she is requested for a second delivery, she can't do it and must call Jane Sharp to finish the job.

Told she is too stupid and a failure for this kind of work, Beetle runs away.  She takes a job as an inn girl, again doing all the dirty work.  But little by little, be once more begins to pick up some learning, including some letters and words thanks to the indirect help of a scholar staying at the inn.  When she learns that the name Alyce begins with the letter A, a letter she now knows, Beetle decides this will be her name from now on.

One day, Jane Sharp shows up at the inn and Alyce overhears her talking to the scholar about her, and discovers that Jane didn't thing she was so useless and stupid after all, but she was disappointed when Alyce ran away when things didn't go well and midwives can't to that.

Having a name, having an identity, and considering about what Jane Sharp thinks of her, will Alyce be able to find the courage to really change her life and her future?

The Midwife's Apprentice is a small coming-of-age story that doesn't waste words.  Each chapter gets to the point, moving the story along quickly and with brevity, and yet much happens.  Slowly, with only a calico cat as her constant friend and companion, Alyce manages to transform herself despite many obstacles and even helps a fellow orphan boy along the way.  Alyce is a very sympathetic character, surrounded by some mean, selfish people, yet they all manage to impart something that helps her go from being Beetle to becoming Alyce.  There is even a hint of a romance possibility as Will Russet begins to see Alyce as more of a human being and less of a dung beetle.

Much as I like the character of Alyce, I really like the way Cushman shows her journey as one of process and something that needs to be worked on that has success and failure along the way.  Jane Sharp taking Alyce out of the dung didn't bring a complete change in Alyce's circumstances, but was the first step in away from her old life.

Karen Cushman won the Newbery Medal for The Midwife's Apprentice in 1996.

This book is recommended for readers age 9+
This book was purchased for my personal library

A useful discussion guide is available on the author's website here
A more extensive student guide may be downloaded here

This is book 2 of my 2013 Award Winning Reading Challenge hosted by Gathering Books