Customer Reviews

The Adventures of Sir Lancelot the Great (Knights' Tales)

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I wonder just how long Gerald Morris can continue to fly under the radar? By all rights the man should be as well-known and rich as Brian Jacques and the like. His "Squire's Tales" set in the world of King Arthur are funny, smart, and harbor just the right mix of authenticity and plumb good writing. They are, however, generally written for older kids. The tween to teen market, if you will. As a children's librarian, however, I notice that it's often younger kids that are asking for King Arthur stories. Kids that are reading on their own but still need books that are around 92 rather than 350 pages to sustain their interest. Kids, basically, who just want some early chapter books about Camelot and the Round Table. Up until now I was up a tree when this sort of request wafted my way. My children's room has picture books and long chapter books and not much in between for this particular brand of reader. Now that problem has been solved and it is entirely due to an author who could not have been a better choice for this subject matter. As the first in his "Knights' Tales" series, "The Adventures of Sir Lancelot the Great" takes its cues from classic legends and then renders them not only readable but hilarious.

Considered the greatest of King Arthur's knights, not many kids know that Lancelot was a prince in France before he was a legend. Having heard tales of King Arthur and his knights of Camelot, Lancelot wanted nothing more than to go and be accepted as a knight. After accidentally defeating all of Arthur's knights in a tournament, Lancelot is hailed as a great warrior... which of course gives every young upstart in the territory just the excuse they need to go and attack him. Morris examines some Lancelot stories where he must defend himself in odd situations alongside tales where is tricked, does the tricking, and always continues to hold onto his ideals. By the end of these stories (there are roughly five different ones of varying length) there is little doubt left in the reader's mind as to who was the greatest knight of all.

What I like about this book is that the author has been careful to insert fun and quirky ideas that rarely interfere with the book's overall story. For example, when Lancelot accidentally wins a tournament, it's paired with the fact that he's a bit vain and likes his armor to be extra shiny. So, as he shines his armor with one hand, he defeats a series of knights that keep attacking him with the other. A goofy twist, but one that is consistent with the Lancelot personality we've encountered in other formats and texts. In an odd twist of fate my husband ended up reading Le Morte D'Arthur at the same time that I was reading Morris' book. As a result, we started to compare notes. I'd say to him,

"There's a story in here of a lady who tricks Lancelot into taking up his armor and climbing a tree!"

He would answer, "It's in this book too!"
Then, "My book has a story where Lancelot stops a guy from killing his wife. Then the guy saying, `Hey, Lancelot, look over there!' And when he does then the guy chops off his wife's head. Is that in yours?"

I consulted my own book. "Nope."

Paired with Morris is a Mr. Aaron Renier, who has drawn accompanying pen-and-ink illustrations to go with this book. Some of you may recognize his style from his Top Shelf graphic novel Spiral-Bound. Like Morris, Renier is also from Wisconsin and this Arthurian series complements his particular style perfectly. For the goofiness of some of these tales you need an illustrator with comic book sensibilities. Renier has that in spades, but he never goes too goofy. Even on a picture where Lancelot has an arrow sticking out of his tuchis, the remainder of the scene is beautifully rendered. All tall grasses and bare trees. You get the distinct sense that Renier cares about his subject matter. All the kids will care about, though, is that he makes the book more fun to read.

And it really is fun. Clearly Morris had to do a little editing before he could make this book child-friendly. Some nips and tucks, if you will. Consider, for example, the ending. It contains the sentence, "...and that was how Sir Lancelot returned to Camelot, where he remained the rest of his life, faithfully defending the defenseless, even when it interfered with his afternoon naps." Ah. Well, I can't claim to know my Arthurian lore well enough to say that there isn't a version of Lancelot's story out there somewhere where he did stay on at Camelot "the rest of his life." I do know, though, that there are bound to be several kids out there who already know the whole Lancelot/Guinevere angle, get to the end of this book, and then complain vociferously when they find it completely and utterly missing.

Gaps exist in every library collection there is, often because publishers never got around to putting out titles to fill them. Now one such a gap can be corrected, and hopefully everyone who has ever had an eight-year-old Arthur fan on their hands will note and stock Morris' latest while it remains in print. I'll certainly be looking forward to other books in this series as they come out. Exciting high-adventure for the Captain Underpants set.

Everyone knows the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. And everyone knows that Sir Lancelot was the most famous and bravest night of the group. Mr. Morris has taken the story of Lancelot and made it entertaining and fun for readers of all ages.

THE ADVENTURES OF SIR LANCELOT THE GREAT is the first book in the new THE KNIGHTS' TALES series. In this retelling of Sir Lancelot, Mr. Morris makes Lancelot humorous and quite the whimsical knight.

Lancelot hears that the knights of King Arthur are the best and shiniest in the lands. So he leaves his father and his home country, France, on a quest for the world-famous knights. On his journey, he winds up in a rain storm, making his armor quite muddy. In his attempts to clean his armor to present himself to the Court of King Arthur, he is attacked by sixteen different knights. As his right hand was busy cleaning his armor, he managed to defeat all sixteen by using his left hand. Little did he know, he had stumbled into the midst of a tournament and unknowingly wins.

As with all the adventures in this quick read, Mr. Morris makes the story humorous when it is revealed that this very tournament was for King Arthur himself.

Readers of all ages will delight in the amusing adventures that Lancelot finds himself faced with. He gets caught in a tree, tied up by four queens, and becomes a reclusive forest man. Aiding the storytelling are the equally entertaining illustrations done by Aaron Renier.

I found myself laughing while reading this story and look forward to the next book in the series, THE ADVENTURES OF SIR GIVRET THE SHORT, due out in October 2008.

Reviewed by: Jaglvr

I love all of Gerald Morris's books, but they are all a little advanced for one of my daughters aged 6. So, I was delighted to find this new title written for that age group. I was initially concerned that the language might be a little complex, but I read this aloud to my six year old and she just couldn't stop laughing. She loved the long words and enjoyed saying them after me ("What does recreant mean again, Mamma???"). Highly recommended for girls and boys alike - and parents will enjoy reading it too.

There are a lot of books out there with allegedly humourous takes on the traditional tales - and my two five year old boys have seen them all. Ballerina knights, dragons who eat only tinned pineapple, pirate grandmas - you name it and we've seen the variation. At first I thought they were a wonderful antidote, to the conventional - especially for small children who insist on gendered roles, battle-based climaxes to the story, etc. But all the humour gets kind of tired, and I began to realise that all this variation didn't really even seem different to them, because they didn't know the basic story.

What we needed was a basic tale of the gallant knight. Heroic, and honourable, but also humble and human. Morris's first chapter did not bode well, with Lancelot a mere preening peacock, but his character develops with each chapter, with Lancelot in turns outlancing, outwitting and outdoing the kindness of others, and eventually seeking a quiet retirement.

It was perfectly pitched for reading aloud to bright fives, and managed a nice balance of non-preachy morals as well as humour.

We look forward to the next one.

It's been way too long since I read me some Arthurian legend. And while I should probably go back and remind myself of everything I've forgotten from T.H. White's The Once and Future King, or perhaps Roger Lance Green's King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table (with it's spiffy new Puffin Classics edition), it was more fun to get Gerald Morris's take on the French knight aimed at the young reader crowd.

Fun is key here. Morris has neatly selected a series of tales from Lancelot's part in the legends and presented them as a series of adventures that begin with his inadvertently spectacular arrival at Arthur's court to his days where he has grown weary of the burden of being Sir Lancelot. Along the way he meets challengers to his title as unbeaten, ladies who hold him hostage until he chooses one for a wife, and in the end, defender of the innocence of the queen.

Ah, yes, Guinevere. There's no mention of Lancelot's secret affair here, and nothing else unsavory that might scare off young boys (and girls, to be fair) who might be getting their first introduction to the Arthurian legends. Guine isn't even mentioned by name, she's simply the queen. All in all there is a very sanitized, safe feeling about these adventures, but that doesn't make them any less enjoyable.

The humorous illustrations, both inside and on the cover, are an appropriate indication of what the reader can expect. In some ways, the book's lineage feels closer to Monty Python than any of the traditional prose or poetry of legend. It's hard not to see the rampaging John Cleese at times as Lancelot goes through his paces, until you come across one of Renier's illustrations and are confronted with an entirely different, but equally humorous, character.

This is the first is what is promised as a series, the next up this fall being The Adventures of Sir Givret the Short. If I were a boy I'd be looking forward to these.

Wait a tick! I am a boy!

Who would have thought that a six year old girly girl and 43 year old mother would enjoy a tale of battling knights? What a joy it was to read each night! Written in such a way that my advanced reader could have completed it on her own, however I found that I didn't want to miss a page. Adventure, humor, and values found in each brief but fufilling chapter. Opportunities to expand vocabulary in a playful way. A GREAT read! The author colors the imagination and leads children to think about what may happen next. The Adventures of Sir Givret the Short is already on order!

This is a good book, but very different from Gerald Morris' other works. It is written for a much younger audience, in a different style. It is also much shorter, thus the lower price. It is a great starter book for younger children to introduce them to this genre.

My 7 & 8 year old grandkids and I loved reading this book and we can't wait to read more. I found it on Oprah's book list for kids.

If you have children at a 2nd/3rd grade reading level that like comedy and action, I think they will enjoy this book.