Adam of the Road

Every now and then, I have a dream. I’m supposed to be playing the piano somewhere, but I can’t find my music. I search and search, each effort leading to new delays. I hear the performance starting, and the piano seat is empty, but I’m still searching for that music — and have to deal with the ten or twelve other emergencies that have bubbled up as I’ve been looking for it. It’s always a relief to wake up… I don’t think I’ve ever actually gotten to the piano bench.

I felt a little like that reading Adam of the Road, a classic Newberry winner from 1943. Adam Quartermayne, an eleven-year-old son of a minstrel, loses his dog. Then in the course of searching, he loses his father. Father and son search all over 13th-century England for one another. “The road is home to the minstrel,” says Adam’s father, “even though he may happen to be sleeping in a castle.” The road is certainly the organizing metaphor for this tale of a boy’s journey toward adulthood.

It started out a bit slowly, but by the end I was completely involved. The illustrations by Robert Lawson are filled with his typical tall, lanky, striding people in detailed garb. It’s a style I always have to adjust to, but once I’ve done so I’m able to appreciate its charm.

This is a novel I started reading aloud to my older daughter a few years ago, but it didn’t work out; we couldn’t find the time to read “just the two of us,” so I ended up going with a different book that both daughters could enjoy. But this year as we study medieval history, I think my older daughter will be able to read this for herself and enjoy it thoroughly. It’s loaded with historical detail, but carried so fully by the plot that the learning is effortless.