Lionheart's Scribe

The Crusades Trilogy

by Karleen Bradford

The 12th day of September. The city is in a turmoil. At mass this morning the priests were in a tizzy because King Philip of France has sailed into our harbour with a fleet of ships on a crusade to liberate the Holy City of Jerusalem from the Saracens...

There is talk of naught but the crusade... It is to be a grand and holy war. How wonderful it would be to be a part of it!

As unbelievable as it seems to Matthew, lowly apprentice scribe, crippled by a club foot, and destined for a life of brutal servitude, the quick-witted 15-year-old is quickly plunged into the midst of a grand and glorious crusade to reclaim the Holy Land of Jerusalem.

Genres: Historical Fiction

224 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 15, 2000

Reviews

[Carina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was really interesting because it was neat to see what could have really been the life of a crusader. It was also interesting to see how the boy reacts to what kings, priest, and soldiers say and do, after he hears a Muslim girls side of the story. I recommend this book because it is interesting, and amazing.

[KDO · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lionheart’s scribe is about a crippled 15-year-old boy named Matthew, he is a scribe and records the 3rd crusade in his journal. Matthew lives on the island of Sicily in Messina and spends his days working as an apprentice. One day he hears from someone that King Philip from France and King Richard the Lionheart would come to meet in his hometown. They were stopping by to prepare to journey to the Holy Land.

Months pass and King Philip has already left for the Holy Land, and King Richard is preparing to leave as well. Matthew creeps onto a ship as a stowaway hoping he could go on the crusade. When they are sailing they rammed into a Muslim ship, the passengers were drowning, and snakes were let loose into the waters. Matthew rescued a young girl named Yusra and Richard’s sister, Queen Joan took care of her.

The next day they landed on Arce and the crusade was finally progressing somewhere.


I liked the characters in the book. I like Matthew because he goes from being mistreated by his master to serving the amazing Lionheart. It is also cool how he is crippled on one leg because most protagonists do not have disabilities, so having one makes me pay attention more. Yusra is a cool character, she experiences a tragedy because her parents died when Lionheart’s ships rammed into Yusra’s. She was taken as a prisoner but treated like royalty. Matthew was kind enough to save her and get her to Jerusalem safely. Characters like King Richard and Salah-Ud-Din were characters that are really amazing because they were leaders of armies. King Richard was a ferocious fighter and makes the knights happy by cheering them on. He was also very strategic in his tactics and his critical thinking made him win many of the battles. I liked king Richard because of his strategies. Salah-Ud-Din was a coward, he made his soldiers die and had very bad strategies.

Something I did not like about the book is the ending. The book was about the 3rd crusade so once it was over the book had to end. After King Richard made a peace treaty with Salah-Ud-Din he travelled back to England, this is according to many sources. The book just ended with Matthew writing down that he will go back to England with Richard. I get that it is the end but I was expecting an epilogue about how his life was after the crusade.
The author depicted the historical reality by having the protagonist Matthew communicate with us through his journal. His journal is the book, and we do not get to see Matthew outside of the book. The journal tells us about Matthews life at the age of 15 to 17, he experiences historical battles like the Battle of Arsuf, serving the king, and experiencing sickness. His journal has dates written down on the pages, those dates could have been fake made-up stories but dates of battles matched up perfectly fine. The dates lined up really smooth with the timing of historical events, occasionally Matthew would skip days, up to a month because he is “busy”.

[Chloe C · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lionheart’s Scribe by Karleen Bradford follows Matthew, a young boy with a crippled foot. Matthew is a scribe working for his master Vulgrin in Sicily and is extremely excited to find out that King Richard of England is visiting while on crusade. After becoming fed up with Vulgrin Matthew escapes onto a crusade ship. On his journey Matthew meets many important monarchs and even continues his work as a scribe. This story is full of interesting characters and exciting true events. One thing I really liked about this story was how the author showed different perspectives of the crusade. She showed how the Christian army viewed it as a service to god and thought that Muslims were going against god, whereas the Muslims thought they were just defending their land. Something I didn’t like about this book was the anti-climactic ending. I understand that as a historical fiction book the author wanted to make the ending historically accurate, but I would have appreciated a more interesting ending. I think this book was historically accurate because it accurately described true events and incorporated real people living during that time.

[Lana Kamennof-sine · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderfully written book/story on so many levels. Historical facts as seen/imagined from a first person perspective. The main character a physically challenged young boy who survives by being an assistant scribe to a crotchety boss. He tolerates that because he keeps his eyes & ears open & so is soon involved in a variety of fascinating exploits, not the least, joining The Lionheart's ship. Lots of fodder for discussions on war, its impacts, soldiers with a sense of honour, etc.

[Elentarien · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting read over all. Gives you a look at the Crusades from a viewpoint near some of the battles, but not overly focused on the war itself. Nice bit of 'historical' without dropping massive details on one. And, for a young adult book, thats not a bad thing.

My only real complaint would be the end of this story doesn't really 'finish' up. We know the 'general' ending, more if you know anything of that period of history, but for the main character himself. . .there is no wrap-up of any sort. We don't know if he goes back to England or returns to his old home. NOTHING is said about what becomes of him after the story. . .which is really quite annoying.

Granted, this is the third book of a series, and while the story generally stands alone - it may or may not continue in the next book. As this is the only book I have ever seen by this author, I have no way of telling how it fits in with the overall series.

[Brittain · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book for younger people which explains history correctly, makes it an interesting read.