A Little Lower than the Angels

This is a marvellous book: rich, evocative, thought-provoking and - an added bonus - immensely readable. Young Gabriel, apprenticed to a bullying stonemason, can endure no more of his cruel treatment and flees to hide, unwittingly, amongst the props of a group of travelling Mystery players. It is the Middle Ages and each town has its Guildsmen to perform the annual Mystery play on Corpus Christi. Gabriel's new friends, as year-round players, challenge this tradition. They are headed by two very different personalities - Lucier, French-born and passionate about the preservation of the plays, and Garvey, outwardly benign but unscrupulous and cunning. Gabriel's naivety provides the humour, an ugly alliance between Garvey and the stonemason the tension, Lucier's illness and increasingly close relationship with Gabriel the poignancy. Buy this as a first-year text, then lead children through Doherty's Children of Winter and later, Paton Walsh's A Parcel of Patterns - there's all the literary heritage Kingman could wish for!