JOAN OF ARC

Tompert (Pied Piper of Peru, 2002, etc.) draws on early sources for this simply phrased retelling of the familiar legend, quoting Joan directly and letting contemporaries do the moralizing: “Even the King of England’s secretary wept. ‘We are all lost,’ he cried. ‘We have burnt a good and holy person.’ ” The author rounds off her tale with an account of how King Charles, “filled with Joan’s winning spirit,” drove the English from most of France, and of Joan’s subsequent canonization. Garland (Best Place to Read, Jan. 2003, etc.), however, sanitizes the Maid of Orleans’s brief career, portraying her as a creamy-skinned, spotlessly clean figure who never displays more than minor discomfort, even when pulling an arrow (bloodlessly) from her own shoulder, or standing with palms together as flames and smoke rise around her. Next to Josephine Poole’s searching version, with its powerful illustrations by Angela Barrett (2000), or Diane Stanley’s richly detailed rendition (1999), this comes across as a bland, superficial portrait of one of history’s most surprising movers and shakers. (Picture book/biography. 7-9)