Young Joan

Barbara Dana (author)

Harper Trophy, US: 1991; 340pp

ISBN: 006440661X

Genres: historical fiction

Issues: family, friendship, gifted, identity, religion

This is a delightfully crafted fictional biography of Joan of Arc before she led the Dauphin to victory.

Here she is, at first, simply a kind-hearted, deeply religious child who loves her family and friends dearly. Her days are filled with small, ordinary things – farm life and the animals she cherishes. But as she herself says: "My Joan life came in two pieces of time. There was the time before I heard the voice, and then there was the time after."

This is an absorbing and inspirational read, and the writer has managed to give the reader a wonderful sense of an ordinary life transformed. Moving, enriching, enlightening – for all readers, not only those who follow the Christian faith.

Same Author: Crazy Eights; Necessary Parties; Zucchini; Rutgers and Water-Snouts