As I expected Prince Charles Stuart is portrayed with great sympathy, but there's no attempt made to mitigate the tremendous mistake in strategy that led to the Battle of Culloden. Long ago, as a teenager with no Scottish background whatsoever, I had an obsession with the Jacobite cause, Robert Burns and Scottish independence. I learned to recite "Bannockburn" by heart. Yet well before reading this book I had come round to the perspective that given the losses that Scotland suffered as a result of the Battle of Culloden, it's hard to imagine why which royal family ruled could be that important to ordinary Scots. The teenage protagonist of this book is portrayed with honesty. He isn't always an unwavering Jacobite. He has his doubts. I did enjoy this book and found it well written. I loved the Scottish folk tales and the touch of authenticity that comes from the immersion of the authors in Scottish culture. Robert J. Harris is a Scot and Jane Yolen has spent a great deal of time in Scotland. So they are giving us far more than their research when they write about Scottish history.
Can Jane Yolen even write a bad book? I haven't found it yet! This is another in her sequence of Scottish books, referring to 'Bonnie Prince Charlie'. Unlike The Queen's Own Fool, the prince in question plays only a minor role; the book's about a Highland boy determined to go to war and gain honor as his grandfather did in the uprisings of (17)15; as his grandfather did, the protagonist of this book learns the hard way that war is messy, bloody, muddy and involves the death people near to you, both physically and emotionally. In the end, he helps the Prince escape away over the trackless Highlands with which he's familiar as a result of hunting and cattle herding.Don't worry: it's not unduly grisly, especially for a book including the Battle of Culloden. This is appropriate for tweens.
