ON A MEDIEVAL DAY

Prefaced by a full-page close-up portrait, each of Arato’s nine short tales describes a watershed day in the life of a young person in a different part of the world and a time between the eighth and 14th centuries. In locales ranging from the Mayan city of Tikal and Tang Dynasty China to Timbuktu and Toledo, the children enjoy a ball game or a joust, visit a doctor, get married, make friends and like familiar experiences. The best and least purpose-driven of the lot is the closing episode, in which a young Spanish apprentice discovers that his loving master is a converso (a secret Jew) but reaches a wordless understanding with him. Because the settings aren’t described in close detail and in Ferguson’s pictures all of the children sport similar features and the same faraway look, readers will get a better feeling for the various societies’ commonalities than their differences. Still, each story is supplemented by a map and a spread of background facts, and overall the collection may pique readers' interest in finding out more about some of these realms and eras. (Informational fiction. 9-11)