The Executioner's Daughter

by Laura E. Williams

Overview

The riveting tale of an executioner's daughter who struggles to find a different path in life

Born into the family of an executioner, Lily has always been sheltered by her mother from the horrors of her father's occupation. But when her ailing mother takes a turn for the worse, Lily is suddenly thrust into the paralyzing role of executioner's assistant. Aside from preparing healing concoctions for the suffering and maimed, Lily must now accompany her father at the town executions, something she has never done before. Though she loves her father, the emotional burden of his disturbing profession is just too much for her to bear. Lily must find a way to change her destiny, no matter the consequences.

Set in medieval England, this well-researched and beautifully written novel tells the story of one girl's fight to rise above her fate.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780805081862
Publisher:	Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Publication date:	06/12/2007
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.33(d)
Lexile:	720L (what's this?)
Age Range:	10 - 14 Years

About the Author

Laura E. Williams is the author of Up a Creek and Behind the Bedroom Wall, which was named a Jane Addams Peace Award Honor Book. She lives in West Hartford, Connecticut.

Editorial Reviews

Gr 6-8-A historical novel set in England in 1450. Gentle, sensitive Lily has the misfortune to be the daughter of the village executioner. The other children taunt and torment her and her only friends are the wounded forest animals that she nurses back to health. When her mother dies, Lily knows that it is her destiny to replace her as the executioner's assistant. Suddenly the ugliness from which she has been shielded all her life becomes all too real. She faces the difficult choice of remaining loyal to her loving but remote father or leaving to try to make a better life for herself. Ironies abound in the deceptively simple story. Lily's parents also earn a living by selling herbs and are expert healers. Her father is reviled by the citizens of the town, but they turn out in droves to watch him work. He is viewed by all as a brute, yet he must drink heavily in order to carry out his duties. Lily is a strong, insightful child, wise beyond her years yet still vulnerable. This well-written story is an excellent vehicle for demonstrating the harsh realities of life in the Middle Ages. It can be used effectively with Karen Cushman's Catherine Called Birdy (1994) and The Midwife's Apprentice (1995, both Clarion) and serves as a curriculum link as well as a pleasurable read. A brief afterword provides needed historical background.-Bruce Anne Shook, Mendenhall Middle School, Greensboro, NC Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

School Library Journal

Williams (ABC Kids, below, etc.) takes readers back to a squalid, brutal 15th century for this heavy tale of a family tormented by its dreadful occupation. Because Lily's father and mother are the local lord's executioners, she and her parents must live outside the town walls, banned from the church, feared, and shunned by all. Ironically, these killers are also healers, making ends meet between executions by providing occasional furtive visitors with herbal poultices and remedies. Lily's father takes refuge in drink; she and her mother in each other and in caring for injured wild animals. Then the fragile equilibrium that Lily has built shatters as, in succession, her mother sickens and dies, peer pressure destroys a budding friendship with a town child, and her naïve notion that criminals automatically deserve what they get unravels when she witnesses horrible punishments meted out for trivial offenses, then learns that her own mother escaped hanging by marrying her father. She leaves in the end, hoping to escape the stigma. Despite a contrived final hint that Lily has made a new and happier life for herself, this brief story is so weighed down by its tormented cast and narrow setting that it's more akin to John Morressey's grim Juggler (1996) than Karen Cushman's Midwife's Apprentice (1995). (Fiction. 11-13)

Kirkus Reviews