I tried. I gave it 180 pages (out of about 500), but the whole concept left me cold, and there are plenty of other books I could be reading.
What a wise and other-worldly eleven (or twelve, who knows?) year old is Sylvia. THe wonderful singing voice I can accept, but the trick with birds? It all became too much for me. And the Pied Piper of Hamelin; a crusade that might or might not (probably not) have happened; and miracles, or at least events being mistaken for miracles.
Enough. ( )

A meticulous novel of a child abuse survivor misinterpreted as a Saint who leads children on to their deaths on the infamous 'Children's Crusade' of 1212 A.D.

Our protagonist Sylvia Honeyeater is Saint, temptress, angle and a quick stabber all rolled into one and she comes armed with a sword hidden in a stave and an equally sharp wit.

But like any other Bryce Courtenay novel, the sex is more detailed than the plot and the characters are oddly one-dimensional.

Good book if you have the time to read it.

Bad if you are looking for high quality fiction. ( )

3.5 stars

It’s the 13th century in Germany. Sylvia was young when her mother died and her father abused her. When he died, she was driven from her mother’s home and land by the local people. As she travelled, she met up with Reinhardt, who played lovely music on his flute that often caused rats and other animals to follow him; he called himself the Pied Piper of Hamelin. They travelled together and with her angelic voice and his flute, they entertained people (and/or he drove rats away) to get food to eat and shelter. Sylvia had additional (to the singing) gifts of her own, that when combined with the fish birthmark on her back, people tended to believe she was an angel and miracles happened when she was around.

Eventually, Sylvia and Reinhardt met up with a child, Nicholas, who seemed to have a gift for preaching (at least, when he partook of the mushrooms Sylvia showed him how to consume). Nicholas drew other children to him with his preaching and he decided (well, he was told by Jesus) there would be a “Children’s Crusade” from Germany to Jerusalem.

This was good, but long. A lot of religion in this one, and it seems some of it (but what?) was historically accurate. Unfortunately, the author only included acknowledgments at the end, so the fact that some of this really happened was mentioned but not expanded on, as I was hoping. I assume what really happened was the Children’s Crusade, but I will have to look that up to find out. This is long – almost 500 pages of small font (in the physical book). ( )

Read in 2000s but not found in Library Thing catalogues. ( )

An interesting read with some great characters. I always like Bryce Courtenay's style. I had never heard of the Children's Crusade - what an event! ( )