Historical Fiction

The Prince of Rags and Patches
The King in Blood Red and Gold

Both titles by Terry Deary, Orion (1997).

I'm not sure what age group these are aimed at but I would place them with key stage 3 children in the age range 11 to 13, rather than in Key Stage 2. Each book is centred on the Marsden family in County Durham. In each there are two parallel stories of murder, intrigue or mystery. Each uses the device of story telling by older family members to deal with the earlier historical period. So the first title deals with the reign of Elizabeth I and events in the reign of Henry VIII. The second is similarly set in Elizabeth's reign and also covers the death of the princes in the tower during the reign of Richard III.

The time shifts involved will be difficult for many readers as the two parallel stories are told. The change in the voice of the narrator is particularly confusing. In the first title the first person narrator is originally the boy William Marsden but then it switches to and fro with his grandfather, but when he was a young man. The main characters themselves are interesting, albeit rather two-dimensional but there is an unconvincingly modernity about their relationships. In particular the serving girl included in family discussions does not 'feel' very Elizabethan.

Within the parallel plots there is an awful lot of history, some of it necessary to understand the plot but some of it not. For example when the protagonists in the first title pass through the city of Newcastle we are informed about the beginnings of the coal industry and the effects of the dissolution of the monasteries. Another characteristic of the history is that in places it serves to reinforce stereotypical viewpoints so Mary is 'Bloody Mary', Henry VIII is fat and cruel, and Richard III is crippled and evil. Early on he is described. 'There he sat, the mighty soldier, Richard. A thin and pale man with a twist to his shoulder and an arm so withered you'd think he'd never lift that mighty sword'.

The covers are attractive and the author's other works popular so I can imagine that children will pick up these books but I am not so sure that they will finish them. For the English teacher they are not suitable for a class reader. The twin plots are difficult, the history is intrusive and the themes unconvincing. For the history teacher they fail to give a feel for the way of life of the time, the very thing for which historical fiction is useful in the classroom.