Crispin: The Cross of Lead
Avi
Published by Hyperion Books for Children, New York
With the recent death and burial of his mother's death, Asta's son is overwhelmed with the new realities that are now in front of him. He must find out about his birth and childhood as well as why the steward has declared him a "wolf's head" meaning anyone is allowed to kill him and would collect a reward should they succeed. In order to survive Asta's son must flee his home town and run away from everything he knows. Crispin is confused, scared, and alone as he makes his way into the woods so that he can travel without being seen easily.
Along his journey, Crispin finds an abandoned town affected by the plague or "Great Morality". It is here that he meets Bear; a large man that travels around the kingdom juggling, playing music, and dancing in order to make enough money for food. It is Bear's mission to get to Great Wexley for a dangerous but necessary meeting. Crispin makes a vow to Bear that he will be his servant and although he desires to run away he refuses to break his vow. Along the way Bear teaches Crispin to play music on a recorder and also protects him from the soldiers who are still on the hunt for Crispin.
When the duo arrives at Great Wexley the soldiers are everywhere and it is clear that this is an unsafe place for Crispin. Bear is captured by the soldiers and Crispin is determined to get him back. In doing everything he can to save his teacher and friend he learns the truth about his mother and his noble father. Using this newly found information Crispin is able to find it in himself to make the ultimate sacrifice to save Bear.
Reading Level:
Grade 6; Lexile: 780LSuggested Delivery:
Independent Read, Guided Reading
Web Resources:
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| Avi |
Author's Cite: Here you will be able to look at not only the other books that Avi had written, but there are also links to help teachers help students understand different aspects of the text. Through this website there is a teacher's guide that provides different ways to engage the reader and help them comprehend what is happening in the text. These guide sheets give information like Plot Summaries, Key Ideas and Issues, Discussion Questions, and Writing Activities. This website could give teachers great ideas to initiate discussions and help students understand background information relating to the text for better comprehension.
Reader's Worksheet: This link will bring you to a worksheet that teachers can give to students in order to keep the students engaged in the text and to see if the students are able to understand what they are reading. This worksheet begins with explicit questions about the text and as it goes along the questions become implicit. This will challenge the students to expand their thinking about the text they are reading. This will also help students develop their ability to make connections to other texts they read and this will help their comprehension. The following links are other teaching guides that may be helpful in discussing this book with students. These guides include questions, summaries, and other information regarding the historical information that is related to the story. These guides can help teachers engage the students by giving them worksheets and other activities.
Vocabulary:Crispin Chapter by Chapter Vocabulary List - This link is a list of the vocabulary words worksheet that might be words students have not seen before or that they do not know what they mean. This list would be great for a guided reading group. Students can use this list as they go. They might be able to use context clues to help them understand the meaning of the word or they might have to find other means to find the meaning (i.e. dictionary, internet sources).
Suggestions for Activities for Students:
Before Reading - Crispin: The Cross of Lead is categorized as a historical fiction text that follows the main characters who are living in Medieval England in 1377. The time period in which this book takes place covers a range of historical events and other historical information that could help the student comprehend the text better. For instance the text discusses the "Great Morality" or the Great Plague, the role of Religion during the Middle Ages, and a Feudalist government. By discussing these topics before they read the students will be able to make connections within the text to historical facts. Click on the link to see descriptions about the historical context that this story was based on: Avi Activities Link During Reading - As students are reading the text a teacher could put together a worksheet that will help the students understand the vocabulary by using context clues to fill out the worksheet. To begin the guided reading group the students could be given the worksheet and asked to fill out as much of the worksheet as the can using context clues from the chapters they were assigned to read. For the questions that some students did not get but others did the teacher can generate a discussion so that students can help each other in figuring out what the meanings of the words are. If there are questions that all students did not get correctly then the teacher can refer the students to their dictionaries and have them look up the word and discuss what they found. This will help the student have a firm understanding of the vocabulary that is embedded in the text. Click here to see an example of a vocabulary worksheet. (Look for the page that is titled "Dictionary Digs")
After Reading - Once the students have read the text the teacher could give the students an overall questionnaire about the text to see if they can identify key elements of the text, the plot, main ideas, etc. Also, the questions should challenge the students to think more critically about what they have read by using explicit as well as implicit questions.On pages 5 through 9 of this document (Reader's Worksheet) there are questions that require students to use their knowledge of the story to write in depth responses. As the questions go on they focus more on implicit questions rather than explicit. This type of worksheet can be given to students and completed before the students begin their next text.
Awards and Acknowledgments: Newbery Award, 2003
ALA Notable, 2003
Starred Review: School Library Journal
Starred Review: Publishers Weekly
Booksense Top Ten
Best Children's Books of the year, 2003 list, Bank Street College of Education
Children's Choice nominee, Kansas
Children's Choice nominee, Vermont
Children's Choice nominee, Texas
Colorado Book award
School Library Journal Review:
Grade 6-9-As with Karen Cushman's The Midwife's Apprentice (Clarion, 1995), the power of a name is apparent in this novel set in 14th-century England. "Asta's son" is all the destitute, illiterate hero has ever been called, but after his mother dies, he learns that his given name is Crispin, and that he is in mortal danger. The local priest is murdered before he can tell him more about his background, and Aycliffe, the evil village steward for Lord Furnival, declares that the boy is a "wolf's head," less than human, and that he should be killed on sight. On the run, with nothing to sustain him but his faith in God, Crispin meets "Bear," a roving entertainer who has ties to an underground movement to improve living conditions for the common people. They make their way to Great Wexley, where Bear has clandestine meetings and Crispin hopes to escape from Aycliffe and his soldiers, who stalk him at every turn. Suspense heightens when the boy learns that the recently deceased Lord Furnival was his father and that Aycliffe is dead set on preventing him from claiming his title. To trap his prey, the villain captures Bear, and Crispin risks his life to save him. Avi has done an excellent job of integrating background and historical information, of pacing the plot so that the book is a page-turner from beginning to end, and of creating characters for whom readers will have great empathy. The result is a meticulously crafted story, full of adventure, mystery, and action.
Cheri Estes, Detroit Country Day Middle School, Beverly Hills, MI
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Publisher's Weekly Review:
Set in 14th-century England, Avi's (The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle) 50th book begins with a funeral, that of a village outcast whose past is shrouded in mystery and whose adolescent son is known only as "Asta's son." Mired in grief for his mother, the boy learns his given name, Crispin, from the village priest, although his presumably dead father's identity remains obscure. The words etched on his mother's treasured lead cross may provide some clue, but the priest is murdered before he can tell the illiterate lad what they say. Worse, Crispin is fingered for the murder by the manor steward, who declares him a "wolf's head" wanted dead or alive, preferably dead. Crispin flees, and falls in with a traveling juggler. "I have no name," Crispin tells Bear, whose rough manners and appearance mask a tender heart. "No home, no kin, no place in this world." How the boy learns his true identity (he's the bastard son of the lord of the manor) and finds his place in the world makes for a rattling fine yarn. Avi's plot is engineered for maximum thrills, with twists, turns and treachery aplenty, but it's the compellingly drawn relationship between Crispin and Bear that provides the heart of this story. A page turner to delight Avi's fans, it will leave readers hoping for a sequel. Ages 8-12.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Booklist Review:
Gr. 5-9. In his fiftieth book, (see interview on p.1609) Avi sets his story in fourteenth-century England and introduces some of his most unforgettable characters--a 13-year-old orphan, seemingly without a name, and a huge, odd juggler named Bear. At first, the boy is known as Asta's Son, but when his mother dies, he learns from a priest that his name is really Crispin. He also quickly comes to realize that he is in grave trouble. John Acliffe, the steward of the manor, reveals himself to be Crispin's mortal enemy and declares the boy a "wolf's-head," which means he is anyone's prey. Clutching his only possession, a lead cross, Crispin flees his village into a vast new world of opportunity--and terror. At his lowest ebb, Crispin meets Bear and reluctantly swears an oath to be his servant. Yet Bear becomes much more than a master--he's Crispin's teacher, protector, and liberator. Avi builds an impressive backdrop for his arresting characters: a tense medieval world in which hostility against the landowners and their cruelties is increasing. There's also other nail-biting tension in the story that builds to a gripping, somewhat confusing ending, which finds Crispin, once weak, now strong. Readers may not understand every nuance of the political machinations that propel the story, but they will feel the shifting winds of change beginning to blow through a feudal society. Ilene Cooper
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