The Grave Robber's Apprentice by Allan Stratton

The Grave Robber's Apprentice by Allan Stratton
Buy The Grave Robber's Apprentice by Allan Stratton at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Confident Readers
Reviewer: Linda Lawlor
Summary: Hans is running away from his master, the grave robber. Countess Angela is trying to rescue her parents from the arch-duke, who is cruel and quite, quite mad. And they are both trying to avoid the mysterious Necromancer. Only together do they have any hope of success.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 288	Date: August 2012
Publisher: Faber and Faber
External links: [www.allanstratton.com Author's website]
ISBN: 9780571284078
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Families separated and reunited, wandering actors, lovers pretending to be dead so they can be together — is this really a book for confident readers, or a Shakespeare play? Don't worry. The author Allan Stratton may have a deep affection for the Bard, and delight in borrowing some of his most famous ploys, but they are set here in a story which is fresh, funny and more than a little gruesome. After all, one of the two main characters does dig up dead bodies for a living!

Our young hero Hans has, in line with tradition, a Mysterious Past. He was found washed up on a beach by a grave robber twelve years before, and was adopted purely and simply so that he could look after the revolting old crook in his old age. The boy has recently had the courage to look at the engraved casket in which he was found, but years of hard labour, and shame because of what he is forced to do, have left him powerless to act on his own behalf. Only the infrequent glimpses he manages of the pretty 'Little Countess', Angela Gabriela von Schwanenberg, lighten the gloom of his days.

But, as is often the case, Countess Angela's life isn't as much fun as Hans imagines, and she spends lonely days making up plays for her marionettes, and wishing her ultra-correct parents would show her a little affection. She has seen the grubby boy Hans from the window and envies him his freedom to come and go as he wishes. Neither of them ever imagine they will really meet and work together to save their own lives and those of their families.

The events which lead our two heroes to their destiny are as strange, thrilling and unexpected as any Shakespeare play. Chance encounters, mysterious potions and grotesque villains throng these pages, and the result is sheer, exuberant adventure. The whole thing is an artful mix of tradition and innovation. There is a damsel in distress, but she is feisty and determined despite the fact that the arch-duke spends an inordinate amount of time planning horrible ways to kill her. There are knights and wolves and bears in the woods, and one of the most flamboyant and repulsive villains to be found in books for young people (being blind, he likes to pop items into his eye sockets which are connected to whatever scheme he is currently employed in) but the creatures who will stay in your memory are the Weevils, a bunch of grubby, spiteful little boys who enthusiastically serve for the Necromancer for little more reward than a wodge of sticky toffee. Still, horrid as they are, they do have a most satisfying role in the punishment and demise of one particular rogue!

Young readers will thoroughly enjoy the mud and the worms and the pus and the blood which adorn this story, and it is sufficiently removed from real life to stop them being troubled by it all. Boys will cheer as Hans battles for his life against the arch-duke, and girls will applaud Angela as she runs risk after risk. It's fun, and fast-moving, and fantastic (in the true sense of the term) and will quickly become a favourite.

Readers who want more stories about young heroes caught in extravagantly odd situations will enjoy A Boy Called M.O.U.S.E by Penny Dolan and Neversuch House by Elliott Skell.

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