A Book in Review: The Youngest Templar

The Youngest Templar: Keeper of the Grail (Book 1) By: Michael P. Spradlin
Fiction: young adult, adventure, history 248 pages 2008
Book count: 38

First, a fun fact. I was reading this book at the garage sale that I was a part of. After finishing the book I read the back flap of the book with the author info on it and learned that I was reading the book in the same city that the author lived in. Weird! As, I didn't know that when I started the book, and the friend who gave it to me didn't seam to know that it was that local of an author either.

Second, actually about the book. As it was a local writer, and we at WNBNI are all for local writers, (with the possible exception of "writers" who basically write captions on pictures that they didn't take and then are all "I'm a great and famous writer." [You, know who you are, and that you're socks didn't match your clothes April 1st, 1998.]) so we liked this book. Actually we liked it before that. It is the story of a boy who was an orphan, or more exactly a foundling, who grew up being raised in a monastery after being abandoned at their door, with a note that it was not safe for his parents to keep him, but they will have an eye on him. Some Templars visit the monastery and he is asked to be a squire for one. He goes with them and ends up in the Holy Land on the crusades. Where, he is in trusted with the Holy Grail, and has to make his way back home. Also he befriends an English archer, who if it were not for his hatred of King Richard the Lionhearted, I would think was Robin Hood. And, he ends up saving the life of an Assassin. (As in a menber of the Hashshashin, were we get the modern word from.) He also makes himself a powerful enemy in another Templar who knows about the Grail, and may know about who the boy realy is.