Herman B. Vestal

A middle reader adaptation of Havelok the Dane — and considerably better than I expected!

Garthwaite's Holdup on Bootjack Hill was my favorite childhood story, though I knew it not in its 1962 form as a middle reader novel but in its children's version as a five-part serialization in Jack & Jill Magazine from July through November 1959. I've been catching up on Garthwaite over the past few years, and The Locked Crowns is one that I'd yet to read.

Garthwaite was a children's librarian who turned to children's writing, and she specialized in historical fiction of early California. Because of her California orientation, I didn't expect much of The Locked Crowns (I don't, for example, very much care for her non-California The Mystery of Skull Cap Island); but, as I've noted, The Locked Crowns turned out considerably better than I expected.

I may be overrating it a bit at 4**** (maybe because of my pleasurable surprise, or just because of my bias for Garthwaite) and 3½*** might be a closer estimate, but it's a retelling of a classic medieval romance than current-day younger readers might find of interest.… (més)