In the introductory post of this blog, I said I had read "somewhere around 35" of the Newberys. Trumpeter of Krakow was one of those books that made that number a rough estimate; it sounded familiar, but I wasn't sure. It would have been at least a decade since I had read it last, so my memory's a little fuzzy. Now that I've read it, though, I'm almost positive I have read it before - the preface, where the author tells of a Krakow trumpeter from 1241, seems way too familiar.
With that aside, I liked this one. It's the most "can't-put-this-down" book since Dr. Dolittle. The myth books are collections of short stories, which tend to kill momentum, and Smoky and Gay-Neck had an episodic feel to them, as well. Trumpeter of Krakow has book-long storylines, with evil characters and unanswered questions. In short, it was a fun book.
The book is about a family smuggling a rare crystal out of the Ukraine, who try to present it to the King of Poland. They're followed by thieves to Warsaw, and go into hiding in the area around the city's university. It's medieval Poland, so there's an alchemist upstairs (who's being taken control of by a student). There's a minor romance that doesn't really develop between the son of the family and the daughter of the alchemist. There's a well-respected teacher who gets the father a job as trumpeter. And of course, the thieves manage to locate the family again.
My only criticism is that Eric P. Kelly sometimes dips into being a history teacher. Descriptions of medieval Krakow go overlong, and instead of being scene-setters, they can be a little boring. But this is a minor complaint for me.
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