ABSTRACT
The fact that historical novelists now figure fairly regularly among the winners of the Carnegie Medal of the Library Association is an indication that over the past twenty years historical fiction for children has come of age. In the best historical fiction the author has disciplined his imagination both as writer and as historian. Even so, historical fiction can hardly be used in class teaching. This chapter describes Rosemary Sutcliff's The Mark of the Horse Lord follows the Roman army north of Hadrian's wall. It explains George Finkel's The Long Pilgrimage which tells of a different land of Viking 'voyage' from Northumbria through Europe as far as Jerusalem by land, whilst catching the saga-like qualities of Boucher's work. The chapter focuses on Ronald Welch's latest book Sun of York which gives further evidence of his ability to reconstruct the detail and atmosphere of battle, as in his earlier Bowmen of Crecy, both very much books for boys.
