CRISPIN: THE END OF TIME

Avi guides his hero toward a final, very satisfying destiny in this wonderfully realized conclusion to the Crispin trilogy. With Bear, their mentor and protector, dead, Crispin and the disfigured girl Troth wearily wander the French countryside. Finding refuge at a convent, the two ultimately make the wrenching decision to part when Troth decides to stay with the Sisters, comforted that she’ll never again be shunned for her appearance and having accepted her own destiny as a healer. Bereft of his only friend, Crispin eventually falls in with a band of traveling musicians, who, he finds out in increasingly suspenseful scenes, are murderous thieves who hold a terrified boy in thrall. The story of how he and the child, Owen, escape their clutches makes for a heart-stopping read. As in the other titles in the saga, characters and setting are expertly rendered. The ending is almost unbearably intense and leads to a deeply moving final scene in which Crispin learns that Bear will always be with him. Thrilling and beautifully wrought. (Historical fiction. 10-14)