March 2010

Author/s: Rosemary Sutcliff
Publisher: Oxford University Press UK
Reviewed by: Josiah Senior, Age 12
ISBN 13: 9780192755575

A Roman galleon is shipwrecked near a British tribe, and the only survivor is a baby boy. A tribe member named Cunori takes him in, but a druid says he is cursed. The boy is named Beric. He must prove himself to be part of the tribe because of his origins, and this proving comes in the form of a fight. Once the tribe has accepted him and life is going well, fever and bad crops hit, and Beric is blamed and voted to be banished. He makes his way to a Roman town, where he is tricked into boarding a slavers ship. He is then sold and resold, until one of his owners threatens to send him to the mines. He escapes, but is later caught and sent to be a rower on the galleys. When his rowing partner dies, he attacks the slave driver, is flogged, taken for dead then thrown overboard. When he washes up where a centurion is trying to drain the marshes, the centurion adopts him.

Opinion:
BRILLIANT. Its gripping, brings history alive, and interesting.

Recommendations:
Elevens, twelve’s, and thirteen year olds.

Link to online catalogue
Outcast