The Letter for the King

Dragt, Tonke and Watkinson, Laura (translator)The Letter For the King
First published January 1, 1962
May 13, 2025 by Pushkin Children's Books
E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

I'm always intrigued by the titles that are republished years after they originally come out. Who is the audience for these? Adults who have lost their well worn copies? Grandparents who want to share a childhood favorite with the next generation? There are a few older fantasy titles that have held up amazingly well; students still check out Alexander's The Book of Three, and Tolkien's The Hobbit comes and goes in popularity. Since The Letter For the King appears on lists of books one shouldn't miss, I took a chance on it.

It's fairly standard medieval adventure fantasy, and reminded me a bit of Howard Pyle's work, or Goudge's Little White Horse (although it has no aspect of "gargling with honey"). Most like Beckman's Crusade in Jeans (1973), which I kept around school for a number of years. I found it a little hard to believe that Tiuri would just go on this massive mission right before he is to become a night just because a random stranger asks him; wouldn't even a novice knight check out the person's motivations?

Might a really die hard fan, who has worked through a translation of Dumas' The Three Musketeers (Which took me about two weeks to read!), find this interesting? Perhaps. The style is very formal, and not as exciting as I had hoped. The translation is decent, but still feels like a translation. The illustrations are perhaps the best part of this. This wouldn't be the best use of my limited library money to purchase for my middle school; I'll recommend Flanagan's Ranger's Apprentice instead. If Pushkin Press wants to publish international books, I'd love to see translations of more modern titles that haven't made their way to the US. At 512 pages, very few of my readers will pick this up. Perhaps 25 years ago, during the height of the Harry Potter trend, but not now.