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Geoffrey Trease was a British writer, mainly of junior historical fiction, covering a broad range of history, from ancient Greece and Rome to World War II. He was known for his careful treatment of the historical facts upon which his stories were based, his use of characters who were ordinary people and not necessarily from the upper classes, and lively plots and interesting dialogue. This review introduces two more novels to add to the five novels of his that are in the Plumfield library, all of which are set at the upper middle school level but are also readable by high school students. Mr. Trease wrote many more books that are worth reading.
Trease goes back to the ancient Roman Empire days for the setting of his novel, A Message for Hadrian. Not everyone student knows, at least I didn’t in my school days, that England was part of the Roman Empire for three hundred years, from about 50 AD to 350 AD. It was called the province of Britannia. Today, one of the most famous pieces of Roman Empire history left in England is Hadrian’s Wall, which was built to keep out the Picts, the ancestors of the Scots. The wall ran 73 miles all the way across a narrow part of the island in the north, from the city of Newcastle in the east of England to the town of Bowness-on-Solway in the west. There were many forts built into the wall to house the soldiers who guarded the border. Emperor Hadrian started building the wall in about 120 AD so it was named after him. Pieces of the wall are left and archaeologists do digs at the remains of the forts. There is an official footpath across the island along the wall, which I have walked on and I have visited two of the forts.
The hero of the book is Paul, a Roman soldier’s son who is tricked into revealing secrets about his father’s fort in Britannia so that local British tribesmen could overwhelm the garrison. Paul escapes with his life and is befriended by a Roman poet who is on his way back to Rome from Britannia and also becomes friends with the poet’s daughter, Antonia. Through a series of events, the boy and girl get wind of dangerous news of official corruption that must be taken to the Emperor Hadrian himself. The rest of the book involves Paul and Antonia and their thrilling quest across Italy to get to the Emperor. A Message to Hadrian gives a nice feel for the times (the Roman Empire was surprisingly modern in many ways) and is written on a middle to high school level.
The Industrial Revolution in England had its beginnings in the north, mainly with the textile industry, in the early 1700s. Newspapers were getting their start around the same time. The Silken Secret is set in Derbyshire, in the middle-north of England, near to what is today the Peak District National Park. Back then it was a wild country that sheltered outlaws and bandits in steep valleys and deep caves. The Silken Secret is an exciting story that mixes: a poor but smart boy taking good advantage of his opportunities, a sharp newspaper man, a shrewd factory owner, industrial espionage that obtained silk processing secrets from Italy and the inevitable retaliation, mystery amongst the caves and rough mountainous country In Derbyshire, and a boy and girl protecting each other from danger and helping to solve the mystery. The Silken Secret is written at the middle to high school level.