Customer Reviews

Puppeteer's Apprentice, The

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We read this story aloud as a family, and really enjoyed it. It's about an orphan girl named Mouse who runs away from her life as a servant. After seeing a puppet show at the fair, she wants to learn how to make the puppets dance. She stows away on the mysterious puppeteer's wagon. After a rough beginning, the two become friends as they travel through Medieval England. It was an enjoyable read, although there was an unnececary description at the beggining that we could have lived without. But there aren't a lot of stories about little girls in the Middle Ages, and this is certainly better than Catherine Called Birdie. In short, it was very, very good.

Mouse has nothing: no family, no birthday, not even a real name. Although she's worked all her life in the kitchen of a wealthy manor, she's given barely enough food to keep body and soul together, and the cook berates and beats her regularly. One day his brutality goes too far, and Mouse runs away. When she sees a puppet show at the fair, she is immediately entranced; to her, the puppets represent all the beauty and laughter she's craved all her life, as well as a thoroughly satisfactory way to make a living. She convinces the irascible but secretly tender-hearted puppeteer to take her on as an apprentice. As she learns the secrets of puppetry, though, she also finds herself drawn to the mysterious puppeteer's personal secrets.

Mouse's medieval England comes vividly alive in this splendid little novel. The shabby and the beautiful, kindness and cruelty, merge together to make history, and Love's characters, leap off the page. The mystery is engaging and well-paced, but it is the well-developed characters and the richly rendered setting that will linger in the reader's mind and heart.

Touching, tender, sad, and triumphant, "The Puppeteer's Apprentice" is well worth your time, and should appeal to kids, parents, and teachers alike.