A review by avrilhj
Bows Against the Barons by Geoffrey Trease, C. Walter Hodges

3.0

This is fascinating. It’s the first of Trease’s historical stories for children, a genre that he would make his own, and it has all the immediacy and colour of his later books. But the politics are very crude; the outlaws sound as though they’re members of the socialist Sunday Schools that were around in the 1930s in Britain. No female characters with speaking parts; Trease definitely improves there as he gets older. I’m glad I read it, but I don’t think I’ll reread it, unlike others of his books that I first read as a child and still reread with enjoyment.