Customer Reviews

Army of Children

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I first picked this book up when I was 13 years old. Ironically, Sting had released an album that year with a song track called, "Children's Crusade" -- I believed it to be divine providence. The book focuses on the Children's Crusade of 1212 AD. After several failed attempts to take the Holy City of Jerusalem by force, thousands of children deluded themselves into thinking they could take it by love. Approximately 30,000 children set out from both Paris and Cologne under the leadership of a child called Stephen, who self-styled himself a prophet. He swore the seas would part for him at Genoa and that they would walk the rest of the way to Jerusalem.

The story focuses around two characters - a Christian and a Jew - who follow on crusade for varying reasons. One by one the friends they make fall prey to the rigors of travel - crossing the Alps, Starvation, hostility, and the reality of slave traders in the Middle Ages. It's truly an astonishing book that weaves hope together with fear and faith.

Yes, this book is engrossing, well-constructed, and meticulously researched (the fact that the author personally trekked the same route as the characters is undeniably impressive). Yes, it's got all the traditional requirements for quality novels. However, the most striking thing about it is how resonant it is in 2002. It's a book written in 1978, about events in the 13th century, yet it somehow accurately depicts the pitfalls of liberal reaction to post-September 11th issues. I could not help thinking of the CNN footage of activists and students and artists marching across Iraq on a peace mission, while I read this book, simultaneously applauding their courage and belief in love and diplomacy, and cringing at their naievete. The book is unsettling and unresolved because the forces it depicts, the beauty of idealism and youthful self-confidence, the dual power of religious fervor as a life-force and a death-force, are powerful and transhistorical. It does what good modern books should do -- depicts with accuracy and complexity and invites the same diversity of opinion that the thing it depicts would provoke in real life. I'd be interested to reading other reader's thoughts.

Yes, this book is engrossing, well-constructed, and meticulously researched (the fact that the author personally trekked the same route as the characters is undeniably impressive). Yes, it's got all the traditional requirements for quality novels. However, the most striking thing about it is how resonant it is in 2002. It's a book written in 1978, about events in the 13th century, yet it somehow accurately depicts the pitfalls of liberal reaction to post-September 11th issues. I could not help thinking of the CNN footage of activists and students and artists marching across Iraq on a peace mission, while I read this book, simultaneously applauding their courage and belief in love and diplomacy, and cringing at their naievete. The book is unsettling and unresolved because the forces it depicts, the beauty of idealism and youthful self-confidence, the dual power of religious fervor as a life-force and a death-force, are powerful and transhistorical. It does what good modern books should do -- depicts with accuracy and complexity and invites the same diversity of opinion that the thing it depicts would provoke in real life. I'd be interested in reading other readers' thoughts.

I actually didn't buy this book to read it. My daughter lost the book from her school library and she had to replace it. If I had to comment on anything the company I purchased it from CityBooks did an awesome job of sending the book in a very short time and the book was marked as a "good" copy (the shape the book was in)and it was exactly that. Thanks Amazon!