THE KITCHEN KNIGHT

This retelling of one of the Arthurian legends is a welcome relief after the recent flood of stories about bumbling knights and nonsense quests. The text is based on Malory's The Tale of Sir Gareth of Orkney That Was Called Bewmaynes and is the story of a youth who worked in King Arthur's kitchens for a year and was then knighted by Sir Launcelot as he rode out to save a princess from the terrible Red Knight. Sir Gareth, like the other legendary men from Camelot, has a fundamental approach to his deeds, as knight meets knight in heroic conflict. Conceptually this is quite easy for a young child to understand. The text, while quite simple in narration, retains the structure and, which is even more important, the underlying dignity and nobility of the original. The two-tone wood-cuts combine simplicity with gracefulness.