Crusade in Jeans
Thea Beckman
 
Ages: 11–14
Grades: 6–9
Pages: 288 A time machine catapults a twentieth-century teenager to the thirteenth century. Rudolf Hefting of Amsterdam —intelligent and headstrong —thought he was engaged in an experiment that would take him back to the Middle Ages to a tournament of knights. But computer error strands him in the Rhineland at the exact time that the Children’s Crusade is passing through. Alone and disoriented Rudolf has no choice but to join the immense children’s army —almost ten thousand strong. The dreadful conditions he encounters compel him to use his twentieth-century knowledge to try to create order out of chaos, and in spite of himself he becomes a leader and organizer, though he knows that the great undertaking is doomed to failure. With Rudolf we experience the day-to-day adventures and tragedies of the long journey across Europe to the sea —the epidemics, the hunger, and the fighting. We experience loyal friendships and courage, too, and devotion to God, both real and false. With Rudolf we struggle to understand how it was possible that children between six and fifteen years old thought they could travel all through Europe and cross the sea to drive away the Saracens from the Holy Land. We discover a world that once existed but one that perhaps we can never fully understand.