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Joan of Arc
France suffered seventy years of defeat during the Hundred Years War, but warrior saint Joan of Arc arrived in time to save her kingdom. Through her spiritual purity, military leadership, and tireless determination, she won many battles against England and Burgundy. With her famous flag leading the way, she returned King Charles VII to his throne at Reims. Readers follow author Paul B. Thompson as he takes the reader through Joan's amazing journey from a humble peasant girl to heroics, from her horrible execution to her eternal sainthood.
* Reviews *
Joan of Arc is such a fascinating character, it's not surprising that countless books have been written about her. What is surprising is how inept, inadequate, and/or inappropriate most of them are, including this one. The book is visually attractive, thorough, and complete, but the writing is wordy and repetitious, and uses difficult, undefined terms. The maps are helpful–as far as they go–but many places mentioned in the narrative are omitted. There are major discrepancies between the text and chronology, along with other internal inconsistencies. The footnoting is atrocious, with numerous citations so badly distorted from their sources that one has to question the author's scholarship and judgment. Fortunately, Polly Schoyer Brooks's Beyond the Myth (Houghton, 1999) is still in print and is interesting, thoughtful, and exceptionally well written. Jim Whiting's The Life and Times of Joan of Arc (Mitchell Lane, 2005) is serviceable, and William W. Lace's Joan of Arc and the Hundred Years' War in World History (Enslow, 2003) is detailed but dry., School Library Journal September 2007
RL
Grades
9-10 IL
Grades
9-12+ GRL
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