Power and Stone

Alice Leader
�4.99

It is a long, long way from Rome to Hadrians Wall - and Marcus isnt sure he wants to be in cold, gloomy Britain. He and his brother have come to be with their soldier father, here at the edge of empire.
Bran is a local boy who wants to be friends - but his sister is wary of the Romans. Is it really possible to be friends wiht your conqueror? As dangerous tensions build, the two families are about to find out...

Published by :	Puffin
Published Date :	2003
Pages :	248
Format :	Paperback.
Illustrations :
ISBN :	014131527X

Quantity:

Review

As the Roman convoy moves laboriously north towards Hadrian's Wall, a Brigante warrior watches from the hillside. His powerful torso is decorated with spiralling blue tattoos. The land he loves of forests, fields, snaking stone walls and sheep on the hills is being taken from him. The Romans have tossed a 'net of intersecting stone roads, knotted with stone forts and stone cities, over his ancient, beautiful land'.
In the small convoy, escorted by Roman soldiers, are three people newly arrived in Britain. Claudia is the wife of the commander of the fort of Vercovicium on the Wall. She has left the warmth and luxury of Rome to join her husband in this cold northern outpost of empire. With her are her two sons. Telemachus, at fifteen, is a disdainful, critical youth on the edge of manhood. Marcus, his twelve-year old, younger brother, is sprightly, lively, observant, excited by the experiences of a new country.
It is almost a hundred years after Claudius invaded the island. The Wall is not yet completed. There are still some forts, milecastles and turrets to be built. At the fort the family are re-united and the adventure begins.
The boys are new to the fort, and through their eyes we are able to learn about the life they are entering - the cobbled streets, the soldiers training, the life of the vicus and the cold and hot baths. Marcus runs along the wall with a young Briton called Bran. Bran takes him to his village and the hut in which he lives. He meets his mother and his red-haired sister, Rhiannon.
The contrast between the two life-styles, the imperial Roman, and the native British is strongly drawn. Is this a country that is suffering under colonialism or is it a land that is being introduced to the benefits of civilization?
At the end of the novel we are faced with this central issue. Stellos, the rebel leader, argues that they are a betrayed nation. The old queen had 'sold herself for Roman trade. She abandoned her people to the Empire, gave up their sovereignty and hid while the Roman legions ripped into our lands, laid waste their stone roads, their stone forts, their stone circles. Their wall from the Otherworld cuts across the whole country, from sea to sea, trapping us, even stopping the wanderings of the deer and stag.' Young Bran defiantly argues the case for the future. 'Everyone is equal, governed by the same laws and privileges under Roman law. Novantae and Selgovae traders will grow rich.'
Later Bran and Marcus encounter the spirit of the old queen. She tells of her historic decision: 'The Romans have shown us the power of a unified land. They have shown us what we can do when we are connected by language, law, roads and trade.' But the two boys also learn that there is something in the ancient Celtic spirit of the islands which will survive and benefit from the Roman occupation.
Alice Leader, an American teaching History in London, has skillfully woven detailed descriptions of life in Roman Britain, into a story of danger and romance that should have a strong appeal to young teenagers.
She is not afraid of tackling the bigger issues of historical change and cultural conflict. Her story dramatizes the important abstract ideas of history. Almost two thousand years ago the windswept hills between Carlisle and Newcastle were the scene of cultural confrontation between a new and an old civilization. Through her characters and the excitement of her story, Alice Leader makes her readers face up to the great issues of history. - Steve Matthews, Bookcase.

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