Monday, May 11, 2009

King Arthur

Perhaps inspired by my new love of Here There Be Dragons, I picked up two books about King Arthur. One was the 1998 Rosalind Kerven Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness Classic. I particularly liked this one, since it retold the basic Arthur legends and was accompanied by pictures of places, actors in costume for various films, and had side bars to explain some of the history and mythology. It was an excellent overview, easy to read and understand. I gave this to my son, and will hand it to several of my fantasy fans, since it is such a quick but informative read. I'm looking forward to looking at the Aladdin book in the same series.

Perhaps harder to find is the 1995 Michael Morpurgo book Arthur: High King of Britain. This is more of a story, and a bit odd, because it is the size of a picture book, with lots of illustrations, but also very heavy on text. I didn't care much for the premise of a young boy lost along the shore meeting Merlin, but once Merlin starts to tell the story of Arthur, it was interesting. I feel as if I should go back and read The Sword of the Rightful King and a couple of other books in preparation for finishing The Once and Future King this summer.

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