The novel is set in the medieval times, and the protagonist is a nameless peasant boy who has recently been orphaned. His mother has died, and he never knew his father's identity. The boy's mysterious father creates the plot for the story. As the plot develops, the boy's true identity is slowly revealed. Therefore, this book would be a good fit for a literature circle/book club with the thematic focus of identity/coming of age.
"What are you going to do?" I cried.
"Cut your hair."
"Now look at yourself again," he said when he was done. "What do you see now?"
I considered my reflection anew.
"Are you different?" he said.
"A little," I said.
"And that was only water and a blade. Think what you might become if you were cleansed of thirteen years of dirt, neglect, and servitude" (104).
The story also illustrates the grim lifestyle of peasantry during that time period and the role that religion played in day-to-day village life.
Thus our lives never changed, but went round the rolling years beneath the starry vault of distant Heaven, Time was the great millstone, which ground us to dust like kerneled wheat. The Holy Church told us where we were in the alterations of the day, the year, and in our daily toil. Birth and death alone gave distinction to our lives, as we made the journey between the darkness from whence we had come to the darkness where we were fated to await Judgment Day. Then God's terrible gaze would fall on us and lift us to Heaven's bliss or throw us down to the everlasting flames of Hell (13).
Practical Considerations: There is one rather vivid description of a man who has been hanged on page 55, but other than that, I have zero concerns about using this book as a required reading in a middle school classroom.
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