Carol's Notebook

Ice Road by Joan Lennon (Suggested reading level: Grades 4-6) Last time we visited medieval England and the Wickit Monastery in Fen Gold (below) it was summer, but now winter has come to the Fens with a vengeance, the harshest winter anyone can remember. While everyone in the monastery is sick and confined to bed except young Pip, Perfect the dragon gargoyle, and Brother John, not normally the most relied on monk. "And you know," and Brother John leaned close and lowered his voice, as if about to tell [Pip] a deep dark secret, "you don't need to worry so much, because it's really astonishing how much a silly person can achieve if he has to." Then he nodded sagely a few times and even tried to wink. (pg. 78) And Pip has to leave Brother John alone at the monastery tending to all the sick. The winter has transformed the vast waterways of the Fens to a solid Ice Road, a situation King...

Fen Gold by Joan Lennon (Suggested reading level: Grades 4-6) This is Pip and Perfect's second adventure, following Ely Plot. Pip is a young orphaned boy who lives at Wicket Monastery deep in the fens of medieval England. Perfect, his companion, is a small, talking, swimming, flying dragon gargoyle, and they make a great pair, lively, adventurous true friends. It's a sweltering summer when two strangers arrive at the monastery in need of medical help. The first is a man from the King's court, the second is older Norseman who is accompanied by two brawny young men and a girl, the Lady Rane. The Lady Rane was different: exotic, unlikely, a breath of fresh air, wild like the open sea ... golden. In their minds, the Brothers looked for the right words, and often found, instead, memories of things long forgotten, from childhood, or stories of faraway places that had stirred them once, emotions and dreams from the time before the habit of Wickit...