Richie's Picks: RALEIGH'S PAGE by Alan Armstrong, Random House, September
2007, ISBN: 978-0-375-83319-9; Libr.ISBN: 978-0-375-93319-6
" 'With Mr. Raleigh and his people you'll learn mathematics and geography,
even some of the new medicine. If you're lucky you'll get your wish to
travel.'
"It was early afternoon when they approached the London wall. Andrew
smelled the ditch outside before he saw it -- a dump for rubbish and dead dogs.
Going through the gate, they passed into a noisy warren of close-packed houses
built out over narrow twisting lanes. They approached a square where there
was a crowd. At its center a slight figure floated in a space apart, white
and sparkling in an apple-green gown. She had red hair.
" 'The Queen!' Andrew's father called. 'Touching folks for the King's Evil.'
" 'What's that?' the boy asked.
" 'Scrofula it's called, an awful hardening and lumping in the neck that
pains and scars. It's thought to be cured by the touch of royalty.' "
It is the spring of 1584, and whilst tuberculosis runs rampant in London, it
is also nearing the end of a century of European exploration plaguing the
New World.
Into London comes eleven year-old Andrew Saintleger (Salinger), the youngest
son of a Devon farmer. Andrew's father spent his own childhood living near
young Walter Raleigh and events that transpired back then permit the
father's delivering Andrew to Raleigh -- now the Queen's confidant -- for training
and with hopes that the young man might find a favorable future -- possibly
even in the New World.
Throughout RALEIGH'S PAGE, there are periods of time when Andrew is
acquiring skills and confidence from Raleigh while staying at the London residence
and other long stretches when Andrew is off on the dangerous undertakings that
the brilliant and forceful Raleigh conjures up and directs from his base of
operations:
" 'You see,' the doctor continued, 'the Queen feeds and houses Mr. Raleigh,
but his leash is too short for him to sail to America. If his exploring
captains give a good report and the expedition goes, he won't be along. The Quee
n keeps him tied to Court.'
" 'Why?' Andrew asked.
" 'She cannot risk his loss. He is one of the few she can tell her mind to.'
"Doctor Dee grew silent. He looked at Andrew and nodded."
The original working title of what is now RALEIGH'S PAGE had been ANDREW:
BEING THE BRIEF AND TRUE REPORT OF A PAGE TO SIR WALTER RALEIGH WHO ASSISTED
HIS STUDYING OF THE NEW WORLD, WENT AS A SPY TO FRANCE AND TRAVELED AS ONE OF
HIS ADVENTURERS TO VIRGINIA.
It is an apt description for the exciting series of adventures in which
Andrew, the former Devon farm boy finds himself. These exploits lead up to the
young man's inevitable participation in the second expedition that, in the
Spring of 1585, Sir Walter Raleigh organized in hopes of establishing a claim,
finding riches, and learning more about the New World.
An obvious nonfiction companion to this fictional tale about Andrew is Marc
Aronson's Sibert Medal-winning SIR WALTER RALEGH AND THE QUEST FOR EL DORADO.
To quote Aronson's discussion of the second expedition that Raleigh/Ralegh
organizes:
"Seven boats sailed from Plymouth harbor in Devon on April 9, 1585. The
fleet was under the command of Ralegh's cousin Sir Richard Grenville in the
Tiger, a ship lent by the queen... Scattered on the other boats were four men
who, with Grenville, determined the fate of the settlement. There was the
familiar pilot Simon Fernandez; Ralph Lane, a soldier who became governor of the
colony; Thomas Hariot; and an artist named John White, who had first sailed
across the Atlantic and sketched the people he saw in 1578. If you group
Grenville with Fernandez (though they did not like each other at all), set Lane by
himself, and link Hariot and White, you have a portrait of what America
meant to England. Though the first two were eager to go to sea, they always saw
the main action in taking prizes from the Spanish. Lane viewed the trip as a
military challenge. Hariot and White were fascinated with the new land and
new people."
In RALEIGH'S PAGE, the fictional character Andrew Saintleger fits into this
mix as Hariot/Harriot's secretary during the course of the expedition to
America. As a bright and hard-working young man who seems to have been raised
with kindness and virtue, Andrew comes to serve as the conscience and reality
check on the arrogant and horrific treatment of the indigenous people who are
encountered in Virginia.
Actually, Andrew is faced with depictions of brutality and intolerance in
Sixteenth century Europe long before he sees it in the New World: One of his
young, fellow pages at Raleigh's residence brags without remorse of having
stabbed a man to death. Rebecca, the young girl he fancies at home, is in
danger for being raised in the Catholic religion which is now outlawed in
England. Raleigh's gardener in London, who becomes one of Andrew's teachers, is a
Protestant who has escaped France where the Huguenots are being prosecuted.
And on one of his adventures, Andrew must travel in disguise to Amsterdam and
seek out a Jewish jeweler, a friend of Harriot's, who knows how to shape
lenses to the specifications calculated in the astronomy book that the generally
despised Arabs are responsible for writing, a book Harriot has purchased from
a Turk trader out of Constantinople. (The Jews have all had to abandon
England.)
But, of course, the most barbaric behavior is visited upon the Indians of
Roanoke Island, who are initially so willing to share and trade in the wake of
a maritime mishap that leaves the adventurers short of provisions.
Heightened conflict becomes inevitable when the coercive English -- led by Lane --
effectively eat the Indians out of house and home and still demand more.
"Sir Walter would have begun friendlier, Andrew thought to himself. Captain
Lane makes us sound like Spaniards."
When first in Roanoke, Andrew meets and become close friends with a young
Indian character named Sky. It will be through the eyes of this pair that the
strengths and knowledge of each other's cultures are examined and the
atrocities of the English viewed.
This is one of those infrequent occasions where an author of children's
fiction provides detailed source notes. In doing so here, we learn that
Armstrong has utilized significant primary source materials, including Harriot's
own
reports, in accurately depicting the events into which Andrew is immersed.
Based upon the author's scholarship, I feel comfortable and confident
enjoying and recommending Andrew's engaging story without fear of perpetuating
stereotypes and myths.
Richie Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks http://richiespicks.com
Moderator, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_school_lit/
BudNotBuddy@aol.com
http://www.myspace.com/richiespicks
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