Elizabeth Laird’s Carnegie shortlisted novel, Crusade, is a rattling good tale.  I would love to still have a class of ten and eleven year olds with whom I could share it.  It would read aloud very well indeed.  Set in the time of Richard the Lionheart and Saladin, it tells the story of two boys, Salim, born and brought up in Acre and Adam, dog boy on the estate of an English Lord called to follow his King to the Holy Lands on Crusade.  Laird traces their lives over the three year period during which Acre is besieged before eventually falling to the crusading forces.  Salim finds himself apprentice to a Jewish doctor forced to follow the Moslem army and thus in a position to see for himself the integrity and generosity of the Islamic leader.  Adam tends his lords hunting dogs and eventually as the crusaders numbers are depleted by illness and lack of food, acts as squire to Sir Ivo, a knight who for once gives knights a good name. 

Using these two  boys and their experiences as her focal point, Laird explores the similarities and differences between the warring forces and in the course of her narrative questions the whole basis on which the conflict is being fought.  And it is, as I said, a rattling good story.  But, it is also a polemic.  This feels to me as if it has been written deliberately to raise issues.  The parallels with current situations are too obvious to be comfortable.  It is a story told for a purpose rather than a story told because it had to be told.  There is a self-consciousness about it which doesn’t belong in a first-class narrative.  I suspect its place in the shortlist and will be disappointed if it wins.