REVIEW: CRISPIN BY AVI

Crispin by Avi

Young person's novel

Avi is my hero.  This guy can write a book.  And who doesn't like a guy who only has one name?  Avi.   Now that's kewl. 

The first time I encountered Avi was when I was working a Scholastic booth for my sister and had some downtime and picked up "The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle".  Needless to say I became miffed when people started approaching the booth as the book was so darn good.  You mean I have to put this incredible little book down?  But I digress.

Crispin begins with our hero attending the funeral of his loving mother.  He is an orphan as his father died a few years prior, and by reasons unknown to the reader his mother had quite the reputation and quickly Crispin realizes that all is not so rosey in his home village.  Feeling painfully alone he takes to the woods, and he overhears a cryptic and damning conversation with the resident Bad Guy, and at the tale end of this conversation said Bad Guy swivels his head around and locks eyes with our hero. 

Yikes.

What ensues is an incredible tale of Crispins flight to escape, upon which he meets up with a robust jester who has taken up residence in an old decrepit church.  From here the story really takes off and this unlikely pair forge ahead to create a story that will have you flipping the pages long into the night.  I literally could not put this book down.  And it is a super fast read as the type face is large-ish and  the text is double spaced.  So you can really plough through it in no time.  There is a sequel to this book called, "Crispin at the Edge of the World" which is on my wishlist for Christmas.

I HIGHLY recommend this book for ALL ages!

4.5/5