A Season Most Unfair
by J Anderson Coats (Author)
Perfect for fans of The Beatryce Prophecy and Catherine, Called Birdy, this historical middle grade coming-of-age story set in medieval times follows a strong-minded girl determined to prove she's just as good a candlemaker as any boy.
Scholastica, or "Tick," has grown up helping her father make candles in his shop. The experience has its ups and downs--while constantly smelling like tallow makes it hard for Tick to keep friends, stray cats love her. Still, she delights in the work and the fact that she can help Papa. Every summer, they use the long daylight hours to make as many candles as possible to sell at the Stourbridge Fair, the highlight of their year. And this year Tick is finally going to be allowed to make the special Agnus Dei charms that keep travelers safe.
Because she's a girl, Tick can never be a true apprentice in the trade, but if she gets to do the job anyway, does it matter what she's called? But one morning she finds a boy sitting at her workbench. Papa has taken on an apprentice and now Tick is forbidden from helping with the candle-making. Tick isn't about to stand for this unfairness. She's going prove to Papa that she deserves to be his apprentice, even if it means sneaking away to the Fair...
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Kirkus Reviews
A flat story of a girl challenging the limitations society puts on her.
Booklist
Publishers Weekly
The only child of a chandler in medieval St Neots, Scholastica, known as Tick, has always enjoyed candle-making. Time spent in comfortable conversation with her beloved father and a yearly visit to the merry Stourbridge Fair help make up for the pungent work of rendering tallow. Tick is especially excited for this year's work: because of her papa's increasingly blurry sight, Tick believes she will be allowed to make the delicately painted beeswax Agnus Dei charms that bring in the most money. But Tick is outraged when a tanner's young son, Henry of Holgate, arrives, having been invited to apprentice to her father. She's also wounded that Papa seems to be pulling away from her--no doubt because she's becoming "young-womanly," something she's noticed has caused distance between her friends and their fathers. Henry's initially shoddy workmanship alarms Tick, and fearing that profits will suffer because of it, she heads to the fair with her own wares, aiming to prove how much her papa needs her. Coats (The Night Ride) deftly layers headstrong Tick's efforts to remain close to her papa, and her annoyance with traditional gender roles, in a feminist tale with a persuasively rendered historical setting. Characters read as white. Ages 10-up. Agent: Ammi-Joan Paquette, Erin Murphy Literary. (June)
Copyright 2023 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.Review quotes
JUV014000 - Juvenile Fiction | Girls & Women
JUV016070 - Juvenile Fiction | Historical | Medieval
Historical fiction
Apprentices
Bildungsromans
Candlemaking
