Summerbook #10: Wordhoard

I sure wish I had this cover

Wordhoard: Anglo-Saxon Stories, by Jill Paton Walsh and Kevin Crossley-Holland

This must have come across the donation table; it's a library discard, but from a Delta High School.  There's no location and it can't be from the Delta I know, so it's probably from the one near Sacramento; there are several.  I would not have been attracted to it in high school.  The cover is pretty 60s and hideous.  This one, from a Puffin paperback, is much more interesting-looking, and the lettering makes me think Trina Schart Hyman may have done it, though it's not her usual style at all.  She did a whole lot of book covers though!

I didn't really know what this book was, so I was actually pretty surprised to open it and find short stories based on famous Anglo-Saxon events or poems.  They're very well-written too, as you'd expect, and they go in chronological order.  Here we see a woodwose captured and find that he's a former British chieftain, displaced by a hungry Saxon.  We learn of the battle of Maldon through the eyes of a peasant girl, Caedmon from the testimonies a young Bede collected, and follow the fate of an old bard discarded from the king's hall.    Finally, we witness the death of Harold and with him, the Anglo-Saxon era.

This was a nice surprise of a book, and I'm glad I grabbed it despite not really knowing what it was.  If I was still homeschooling, I'd put it on a reading list for our medieval history year!  

My ugly, non-teen friendly cover