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Author Biography

Book Review: The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood

Legends of Robin Hood have been floating around since the 14th century. Scholars debate whether early ballads and stories were based on a real person. In his earliest versions, Robin was just a crook, sometimes short-tempered, according to Wikipedia . He did not rob from the poor, but he didn’t give to them, either. Some of the aspects we know of Robin survived from the earliest stories; others were added or adapted over the years. Wikipedia details Robin’s history and variations.

In this story, Robin is a yeoman, which seems to be a type of middle class between peasants and aristocrats (other versions cast Robin as a nobleman). He first becomes an outlaw by shooting an arrow at someone who shot at him first, subsequently killing the man. This man happened to be related to the Sheriff of Nottingham, who thenceforth became Robin’s enemy.

As Robin hid out in Sherwood Forest, others soon came to join him. Some who were poor and hungry had killed the king’s deer and fled the law. Others had goods and land confiscated by the king and had nowhere else to go.

To support themselves, Robin and his “merry men” stopped rich travelers and “invited” them to feast in Sherwood Forest, then demanded payment of them. In some cases, Robin divided up the money gathered in this way into thirds, keeping a third for his men, a third for charity, and giving a third back. Robin justified this theft because he figured those he robbed had either gotten their gain unfairly or, like wealthy clergymen, were keeping for themselves what they should be giving to others.

The poor loved Robin because he helped many of them. The classes that Robin robbed from, obviously, did not.

This book details many of the well-known stories about Robin—his first bout with Little John, his altercation of Friar Tuck (someone not in the earliest legends), the archery match in Nottingham where Robin went in disguise. Maid Marian in mentioned but never appears. Other stories I had not heard of were included as well, like how Robin met and helped Allen-a-dale to free his beloved from an arranged marriage, Robin’s deadly run-in with villain Guy of Gisborne, the recruitment of Midge, the Miller’s Son, and other tales.

The book came to a very satisfying end, until it got to the epilogue, where Robin’s death by betrayal is told.

There is an odd mention of “Cain’s wife had never opened the pottle that held misfortunes and let them forth like a cloud of flies to pester us.” That sounds like a convoluted version of Pandora’s box. And I chuckled at his phrase because a former pastor used to say it, and I didn’t know it came from this book: “There is many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip,” meaning plans don’t always work out like we hoped. Maybe it was a common saying that Pyle incorporated.

As I first started listening to the audiobook, I wished I had known of and read this book to my boys. The more I heard, though, the more I wrestled with whether that would have been a good idea or not. There’s something appealing about this version of Robin, “honest … in his own way”: someone who stands up for the little guy, who “never harmed harmless man,” rights wrongs, bests the foolish and evil. But I could never condone vigilantism, for many reasons. And many differences in the book are solved by fighting. Plus there are copious amounts ale, beer, and the like consumed. If we had read the book as a family, we would have had to stop and discuss a lot of issues along the way. Setting aside those objections, though, the rest was fun.

There are many film version of Robin, but the only one I ever saw was the animated Disney one. I’ve seen the character in some shows like Once Upon a Time and Shrek .

I listened to the audiobook superbly read by Christopher Cazenove in a voice and accent perfect for this type of tale. Project Gutenberg has a version online here .

I read/listened to this book for the Back to the Classics challenge, but I am not sure which category to place it in yet. It would fit in two or three. I’ll wait til I read some others and then see where to place this one.

Have you ever read this version of Robin Hood? What did you think?

(Sharing with Carole’s Books You Loved , Booknificent )

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Book Review: Robin Hood

The Adventures of Robin Hood by Roger Lancelyn Green book cover

Robin Hood hits dead center when it comes to excellence in fiction. It does not read like mid-twentieth century novel which it is. It feels much, much older. This is presumably due to the fine research which the author did in preparation for its composition. Reading this book one feels transported back to “Merry Old England”.

The story itself is a series of episodes which at times do not see strongly connected except for the fact that they further the legend of Robin Hood and his band of outlaws. Robin Hood himself is portrayed as unerringly chivalrous and nobel. He is not fighting against mere “the rich” as his reputation has come to suggest, but simply against Prince John and those not loyal to King Richard who for most of the novel is imprisoned somewhere after having fought in the Crusades.

The style is almost Shakespearean, though much easier to understand that that. The character’s motivations never waver and you can count on villains to be villains and heroes to be heroes to the very end. Robin Hood does use a generous amount of trickery in his comings and goings through Sherwood forest, disguising himself as every sort of character imaginable in order to rescue those in trouble or sneak into one of the many archery contests held throughout the novel.

Though I suppose it’s now old enough to be considered a classic, this novel feels like a fresh retelling of even more classic material, making it accessible to a wider audience through simple, straight-forward prose. A wonderful romp from start to finish, Robin Hood will leave you with a twitch in your arrow fingers to go out and try your hand at knocking a few arrows on your own to see how you measure up to this iconic and unforgettable hero.

4 thoughts on “Book Review: Robin Hood”

Okay, is this the one where he goes to the archery contest and introduces himself to everyone as Nibor Dooh? Because I read a version of Robin Hood many moons ago with that particular bit of humor in it and have never been able to find it again…

That’s too funny, but no, I don’t recall this one being in there. This one is written as just a straight up legend or epic, very formalized and “high” sort of style. Not much humor in this version, but quite a bit of action and chivalrous speeches.

There is one truly memorable scene where Prince John’s foresters are fleeing after having killed Robin’s second in command, Will Scarlett. Robin sets aside 15 arrows on the ground and then proceeds to shoot at the fleeing men, killing one with each shot. The last man dies just before reaching the town wall at a distance of nearly one mile! Crazy feats of archery in this one.

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Robin Hood | Book Review

【 ROBIN HOOD 】

This was a heartful and merry read.

Genre: Classic Author: Howard Pyle Published: 1883 Publisher: Barnes & Noble (this edition) Pages: 435 (leatherbound)

I somehow never thought to consider what the original tale of Robin Hood would be like. I assume a children’s story, like so many of Disney’s adaptations are based on. And so it was quite fun to realise this is a full and proper novel for the grow-ups. Though that being said, I think it is still a children’s tale – but what I mean is it isn’t a fairytale.

I will start by saying that I listened to the audiobook narrated by an American narrator and became increasingly frustrated with the mispronunciations of English towns (unless I’m incorrect and places like Yorkshire are said differently now …)

In any case, this is a comprised of chapters in which we look at different adventures that Robin Hood went on. The differences from the Disney version (with which I am most familiar) were fun to point out and also fun to draw parallels between. I particularly enjoyed the references to him as a cunning fox.

The story is just joyful. It’s harder to read because the language is older, but once you get into the swing of it, Robin’s merry attitude is contagious and makes you want to approach life in similarly lackadaisical manner. I also enjoyed the nuanced annoyances between Robin and his men – particularly Little John and Friar Tuck – in how they were so loyal to each other but still got under each other’s skin as siblings do. My favourite is Little John’s frustration when Robin won’t let up on calling him fat.

The ending broke my heart and I didn’t expect for things to be wrapped up in that way. It made me want to start the whole book again to go back to the nostalgic and cheery times of the beginning. I feel like I could read this again and again and keep picking out little life lessons that are sewn throughout. The way Pyle describes the impossibility to returning to previous days gone by of good times in the exact same way, and other commentaries on life as such, were really profound and made this more than just a tale about a noble thief.

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Book Review

The merry adventures of robin hood.

Howard Pyle

Readability Age Range

Charles Scribner's Sons (The original manuscript was reviewed.)

Year Published

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood sometimes called The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire by Howard Pyle has been reviewed by Focus on the Family’s marriage and parenting magazine .

Plot Summary

Animals in England’s forests belong to the king or a local noble. Men called foresters police the area to keep poachers away. One day Robin of Locksley Town walks past a group of foresters. When they learn he is on his way to an archery competition, they ridicule him.

To prove his skill, Robin shoots an arrow at a deer some distance away and kills it. As he leaves, a forester shoots an arrow at Robin, barely missing him. Robin angrily shoots back and kills the man. Now an outlaw, Robin escapes into Sherwood Forest. A reward is placed on Robin’s head because he shot one of the king’s deer.

Other men, who are oppressed, cast out or have become outlaws, join him. But a few men come to join Robin Hood in unique ways. John Little, later named Little John, joins after a battle of quarterstaffs with Robin on a log bridge. A stalwart Tinker, who wants to present Robin with a warrant for his arrest, battles Robin with the quarterstaff and then joins his band.

Arthur a Bland beats Little John in a quarterstaff bout, so Robin asks him to join his group, and Will Scarlet, who is Robin’s nephew and is fleeing his home because he killed a man, also joins. An honest miller catches Robin, Little John and others off-guard in a fight, and he eventually joins the band, too. Allan a Dale joins when Robin Hood comes up with a plan to keep his true love from marrying a knight she doesn’t love. While finding a way to marry Allan a Dale and Ellen o’ the Dale, Robin meets Friar Tuck, who also becomes one of his merry men.

Robin Hood and his band rob from the rich and give a portion of what they steal to those in need. One way they do this is to forcefully “invite” those with ill-gotten gain into Sherwood Forest for a feast. Then the men must pay for their meal with large amounts of coin.

Robin Hood has many enemies, especially the Sheriff of Nottingham. The sheriff wants the reward and to avenge his relative’s death, but he can’t find anyone to give Robin the warrant for his arrest. The Sheriff of Nottingham visits King Henry. When he asks for help to capture Robin Hood, King Henry tells him to capture the thief himself or lose his job. The sheriff returns home, committed to bringing this outlaw to justice.

The sheriff holds an archery competition, which Robin wins, though he does so in disguise. When the sheriff realizes what has happened, he grows angrier. He devises another plan to capture Robin Hood. He sends groups of men into Sherwood Forest, but they only capture Will Stutely, one of Robin’s men. The sheriff plans to hang Will the following day, but Robin and his men rescue Will moments before he is hung. Their boldness scares the sheriff. He retreats to his castle and is ashamed of his cowardly actions.

Robin pays back the sheriff for trying to hurt one of his men. He dresses as a butcher and tricks the sheriff into coming to Sherwood Forest under the guise of selling him an inexpensive herd. Robin and his men prepare an enormous feast for the sheriff. When the meal is over, they relieve him of his money, and Robin warns the sheriff not to take advantage of others.

Little John goes to the Nottingham fair and wins the quarterstaff and archery competitions. He accepts a position in the sheriff’s service, but after six months, he steals the sheriff’s silver goblets and plates, and returns to Sherwood Forest with the sheriff’s cook, who wants to be one of Robin Hood’s men. Robin returns the silver to the sheriff and lets him know that he no longer has anything against the man. He advises the sheriff to be more careful about whom he takes into his service.

One day Little John and Robin go along different paths to invite guests to a feast at Sherwood Forest. Robin meets a knight who seems despondent. His castle and property have been pawned to keep his son out of prison after an unfair jousting tournament. The Prior of Emmet will soon own all Sir Richard of the Lea’s property.

Robin takes the knight to Sherwood Forest and sees that Little John has invited the Bishop of Hereford and three friars, all quite rich guests. To pay for their feast, Robin takes a third of all the bishop’s belongings — one third goes back to the bishop and one third is set aside for charity. The charity gold is given to Sir Richard, along with other gifts.

Sir Richard pays back the Prior Vincent of Emmet, which angers the man, and then works to repay Robin for the money he was given. By the following year, he has the money. On his way to repay Robin Hood, Sir Richard saves David of Doncaster, one of Robin’s men and a champion wrestler, from an angry mob. Robin thanks Sir Richard for saving one of his men, which is worth far more than silver and gold. Sir Richard pays back Robin and gives his whole band new bows, quivers and shafts feathered with peacock plumes.

Another day, Robin and Little John have a competition to see who might live a merrier life: Little John as a friar or Robin as a beggar. At the end of the day, Little John has enjoyed the company of three women on their way to sell eggs, has been treated to ale and has taken a large quantity of money from two rich Friars of Fountain Abbey, after completely embarrassing them. Robin was able to steal a large sum of money from beggars who pretended to be blind, deaf, dumb and lame when they turned on him. Then he tricked a much-hated Corn Engrosser out of his shoes because the man hid his money in his shoes. No one can decide whether Robin Hood or Little John spent a merrier day.

Queen Eleanor asks Robin Hood and a few of his men to the archery competition in London. Robin brings Little John, Will Scarlet and Allan a Dale with him. After meeting Queen Eleanor, they all go to Finsbury Fields for the archery competition. The archery competition is for the king’s men only, but the queen wagers a bet with the king that she can find three champions herself. Once she gets the king to promise immunity for her chosen archers, Robin and his men compete against the king’s champions. The king’s archer beats Will in the competition, but Robin and Little John beat the other two archers. Then warned that they are in danger, they split up and hurry back toward Sherwood Forest.

Robin’s men make it back in eight days, just before King Henry’s men, along with the Sheriff of Nottingham’s men, under the direction of the Bishop of Hereford, surround Sherwood Forest. Robin must change clothing with a cobbler and then a friar to keep from being caught. Sir Richard saves Robin by giving him a uniform of one in his service, and they return to London to beg the queen’s help. She is able to get Henry to be a man of his word, and Robin returns to Sherwood Forest unharmed. Eventually, King Henry dies.

The sheriff sends a murderous outlaw after Robin, whose name is Guy of Gisbourne. After a difficult fight, Robin kills him. This is only the second man that Robin has killed in his life. Meanwhile, Little John dresses as an older man to try to help three sons of a widow who were taken to the sheriff as poachers. The oldest killed a king’s deer, and his brothers wouldn’t give him up.

The sheriff, who is waiting outside Sherwood Forest, hires Little John, in disguise, to hang the three boys. Instead, Little John frees them, but then the sheriff’s men capture him. Robin, disguised as Guy Gisbourne, frees Little John. Then the two take a stand against the sheriff and all his men, and their enemy flees back to Nottingham.

Robin and his men go to Nottingham to cheer for King Richard, who is there for a visit. King Richard wants to meet Robin Hood, so he and his seven men dress as friars with a purse of 100 pounds. As they walk past Sherwood Forest, they’re invited to a feast. Though Robin takes 50 pounds from them, they win it back.

Sir Richard hurries to Sherwood Forest to warn Robin that King Richard will be visiting him. Sir Richard recognizes King Richard, who then reveals his true identity. Robin and all of his men kneel before the king. King Richard pardons Robin Hood’s men and asks Robin, Little John, Will Scarlet and Allan a Dale to go into his service, which they do. The newly pardoned men become foresters of Sherwood Forest for the king.

Years later, at the death of King Richard on the battlefield, Robin visits Sherwood Forest, though King John has only given him three days for the visit. Once Robin enters the woods, he doesn’t want to leave. He blows his horn three times, and those who hear it come to him. They restart their lives in Sherwood Forest.

King John sends Sir William Dale and the Sheriff of Nottingham to destroy Robin Hood. But Robin Hood is no longer a peaceful man, having been in many wars with King Richard. He and his men fight King John’s forces in a bloody battle. The sheriff is the first to be killed. Though victorious, Robin broods on the death toll of this battle and comes down with a fever.

He asks Little John to take him to his cousin the Prioress of the nunnery near Kirklees. Little John leaves Robin in his cousin’s care. Afraid the king will turn against her for her kinship to Robin Hood, she opens a large vein in Robin’s arm and lets his life slowly drain from him. Robin blows his horn, and Little John comes to him. Robin asks Little John not to take out his anger on the nuns for their betrayal. Then he shoots an arrow through the window and asks to be buried on that spot.

Robin Hood dies at Kirklees Nunnery in Yorkshire. Then Little John and his band of men bury him.

A new sheriff comes to Nottingham, and he is merciful. Robin’s band slowly goes their own ways and many have families. The tales of Robin Hood are passed down to their children and their children’s children.

Christian Beliefs

John Little is forcefully christened as Little John by Robin’s band. One in the band pretends to be a priest for the ceremony. The Tinker makes a reference to priests being greedy for money. When Robin, Little John, Arthur a Bland and Will Scarlet pretend to rob an honest miller, the miller asks for their names, and Robin responds that they are four Christian men.

Robin goes to the Fountain Abbey to find a friar to marry Allan a Dale and Ellen o’ the Dale. The friar says that he is too fine of a Christian to not give someone a drink when asked. Some call him the Curtal Friar of Fountain Dale, others call him the Abbot of Fountain Abbey, while others call him Friar Tuck.

Sir Richard’s son is in Palestine in the Crusades. He is referred to as a good Christian soldier. The Prior of Emmet, a leader in the church, does not show mercy to Sir Richard but focuses only on his own personal gain. The Bishop of Hereford is a hard master to those who live on his lands. He is rich beyond what he should be. He uses his position in the church to change King Henry’s so he will pursue Robin Hood and wants to capture Robin Hood for revenge.

After Little John escorts three young ladies to Tuxford, they think it’s a pity that he has taken holy orders. Robin and a couple of his men go on the crusades with King Richard. The Prioress at the Kirklees Nunnery drains more of Robin’s blood than she should, which kills him.

Other Belief Systems

Authority roles.

The Sheriff of Nottingham is set on capturing Robin Hood because he killed one of the king’s deer and killed a man who was related to him. He goes to King Henry to ask for help, but the king rebukes him and tells him he’ll lose his position if he doesn’t capture the outlaw. When Robin Hood and his men attack the sheriff to save Will Stutely, the sheriff retreats with his men. To keep the Sherwood Forest outlaws away from an archery competition, the sheriff offers two steers, knowing they won’t desire to win such a prize. He takes opportunities to capture or destroy Robin Hood, such as sending Guy of Gisbourne after him and working with King Henry’s men to capture him, but not when it requires risk or a noble action on his part.

Robin leads a band of men. They enjoy fighting others and protecting their leader. When the sheriff’s men capture Will Stutely, Robin leads his band to save him. To get even with the sheriff, he finds a way to bring him to a feast in Sherwood Forest and take his money. His men readily follow him in all he does. Before Robin was an outlaw, he taught his nephew Will how to shoot an arrow on a bow and how to parry with a quarterstaff.

Robin is upset with Little John because Little John stole the sheriff’s silver cups and plates after the sheriff has left those in Sherwood Forest alone. When Little John tricks the sheriff to enter Sherwood Forest, Robin gives him back his silver and tells him that they no longer have a quarrel with the sheriff. Later, Robin dresses like Guy of Gisbourne to pay back the sheriff’s attack on him.

Profanity & Violence

Many characters say “Our Lady,” meaning Mary, the mother of Jesus with the word by or use it alone. They also use the phrases saints of heaven , saints bless thee , saints preserve us and saints in paradise . In the original, the landlord calls the Tinker an ass , referring to him as a donkey. The word marry is used as an expression throughout the story. There is a bit of name-calling, such as fat priest , man-eating bishop , poor puny stipling , money-gorging usurer , sweet chucks , sot , porkers or kiss-my-lady-la poppenjay . Robin calls the rich clergy in the church bloodsuckers . A mob yells angrily at David of Doncaster for winning a wrestling bout against their champion.

Robin’s band attacks John Little when they first meet him because he bested Robin. Then seven of them attack him so they can forcefully christen him as Little John. Robin and the Tinker fight each other with quarterstaffs. His band of men is ready to attack the Tinker, but Robin calls them off.

The sheriff’s men capture Will Stutely and plan to hang him. When Robin Hood and his men save Will, many of the sheriff’s men are injured.

Little John competes with the quarterstaff and beats a braggart named Eric o’ Lincoln. He fights with Arthur a Bland and loses to him. Will Gamwell, who becomes Will Scarlet, beats Robin Hood in their fight with quarterstaffs. Midge, the miller’s son, throws barley flower in Robin’s, Little John’s, Arthur a Bland’s and Will Scarlet’s faces and then beats them with his staff. A mob forms to hurt David of Doncaster after he wins a wrestling contest. They throw a rock at him and hit him in the head.

Robin uses the intimation of force at the wedding of Alan a Dale and Ellen o’ the Dale to keep the clergy in the church until the wedding has taken place. King Henry and the Bishop of Hereford unsuccessfully surround Sherwood Forest to capture Robin Hood. Guy of Gisbourne is known for his grisly murders. Robin kills Guy of Gisbourne in self-defense.

Little John saves three young sons moments before they are to be hung. Robin saves Little John from being hung, and they shoot an arrow into the sheriff’s backside so he can’t sit for a very long time.

When King John sends soldiers to destroy Robin Hood, Robin and his men fight, killing many soldiers. Robin has also killed many during his time in the service of King Richard. Robin catches a fever and thinks bloodletting will help. He trusts his cousin, who is a Prioress, but she purposely lets too much blood flow out of him and eventually kills him by doing this.

Sexual Content

When Little John pretends to be a friar, he kisses three pretty young ladies goodbye after traveling with them to Tuxford.

Discussion Topics

Get free discussion questions for this book and others, at FocusOnTheFamily.com/discuss-books .

Additional Comments

Alcohol – There are many examples of alcohol use, including: The Sheriff of Nottingham promises a “butt of ale” to the winner of a shooting contest. There is always drinking when there is feasting. At Little John’s christening, they have a barrel of ale. Robin and the Tinker go to a local inn to drink ale together. Robin asks the host to put additional alcohol in the Tinker’s ale. Robin Hood gets the Tinker so drunk that the Tinker passes out. John drinks ale and buys ale for many at the fair and at inns. Little John spends the night drinking at the Blue Boar Inn on his way to get Lincoln green cloth from a man in Ancaster. When Little John pretends to be a friar, he gives each girl he escorts a drink from his supply and finishes it himself. At an inn, he is treated to ale because he is a friar. Robin brings ale to a beggar, and they both drink.

Saints: The names of many Catholic saints are mentioned with supplications, such as Saint Christopher, Saint Godrick, Saint Ethelrada, Saint Aelfrida, Saint Thomas, Saint Hubert, Saint Wilfred, Saint Dunstan, Saint Wynten, Saint Peter, Saint Withold, Saint Edmund, Saint Swithin, Saint Alfred, Saint Cedric, Saint Albans, Saint Martin, Saint George and Saint Francis.

Gambling: The queen and king bet on who can find the better archers.

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Book reviews cover the content, themes and worldviews of fiction books, not their literary merit, and equip parents to decide whether a book is appropriate for their children. The inclusion of a book’s review does not constitute an endorsement by Focus on the Family.

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Exploring the 16th Century and Beyond

Book Review: “Robin Hood: The Life and Legend of an Outlaw” by Stephen Basdeo

I would like to thank Pen and Sword Books for sending me a copy of this book. I grew up really enjoying tales of Robin Hood, so reading about the legend and how it came to be was delightful.

Basdeo explores two central concepts in this book, the historicity of Robin Hood and the historiography of the legend of Robin Hood. For casual readers, these terms may seem intimidating, however, Basdeo takes the time to explain the purpose of this book and what these terms mean. Historicity explores the historical authenticity of a person or event; in other words, if Robin Hood was a real person, who is the most likely person in history who could have been the original “Robin Hood”. Historiography is the study of the methods of how historians write history. When a historian writes a historiographical study about a certain topic, such as Robin Hood, they explore centuries of historical research and explains why past historians had the bias that they did towards a figure. Although what Basdeo is exploring the literature of Robin Hood in this historiographical study, he does explore how the story changed over 800 years in a very similar way.

Basdeo starts his study of Robin Hood by exploring who the actual Robin Hood might have been and why he believes that this man was Robin Hood. Readers then jump ahead to the 15th century when the first tales of the outlaw first appeared. It is here that we start to see Robin and his merry men becoming part of the culture and the history of England. Basdeo goes through each century, exploring the way different authors put their own spin on the story. As the centuries changed, so did the way the story of Robin Hood was told; from ballads to books and penny dreadfuls to films and eventually comics.

This was such a fun and insightful book to read. Basdeo is able to combine the history of each century with how that changed the Robin Hood narrative and a light, readable writing style. This book feels like you are having a casual conversation with Basdeo about Robin Hood, Maid Marian, the merry men, and the numerous opponents Robin fought. If you want a book that gives great insight into the legend of Robin Hood and how it came to be, I highly recommend you read, “Robin Hood: The Life and Legend of an Outlaw” by Stephen Basdeo.

NIKI FLORICA

The quiet quill.

Books, Blessings, & Quiet Contemplations

Feb 7, 2020

The Adventures of Robin Hood, by Howard Pyle: Review

"In merry England in the time of old, when good King Henry the Second ruled the land, there lived within the green glades of Sherwood Forest, near Nottingham Town, a famous outlaw whose name was Robin Hood. No archer ever lived that could speed a grey goose shaft with such skill and cunning as his, nor were there ever such yeomen as the sevenscore merry men that roamed with him through the greenwood shades. . . .

Not only Robin but all the band were outlaws and dwelt apart from other men, yet they were beloved by the country people, for no one ever came to Robin in time of need and went away with an empty fist" (Pyle, 5).

These opening lines of Howard Pyle's, The Adventures of Robin Hood, were so all-encompassing that they demanded use as a summary. And personally, the moment I read these lines, my heart was captured by this timeless tale and swept away to Sherwood Forest.

I've experienced variations of Robin Hood before, and in fact, the character of Robin can be found in ballads and folklore dating back as early as the 15th century. As a result, most written tellings, Howard Pyle's included, boast a charmingly old-century tone and medieval language. It requires adjusting to a different style of English, spattered with "thou"s, "thee"s, "eth"s, and old English phrases, but is still fairly straightforward—nowhere near as dense as Shakespeare or the King James Version.

The book is episodic: each chapter focuses on a different one of Robin Hood's many adventures, but there's still a sense of continuity as characters and plot build on each other from chapter to chapter. The tone in this particular version is very light and humorous for the most part: Robin is depicted as a pretty merry guy, confident in the face of peril and sometimes even asking for it. His men admire him greatly, and serve him with a devoted kind of friendship and loyalty that I've always found very touching. Robin himself, though a cocky scoundrel at times, cares deeply for the needs of others and never hesitates to give aid to the downtrodden.

Content Notes: positive references are made to the Crusades, which we now understand to be a very misguided and very violent stain on Christian history. Robin robs the rich and often targets men of the cloth—Roman Catholic officials—due to their reputation of corruption. Ale is imbibed almost constantly—perhaps the reason the merry men can remain so merry—and though there is no gory violence, I do warn anyone who has issues with blood/veins that you may find the last chapter distressing.

This character and his escapades are timeless: despite having been around since the 15th century, Robin remains classically and indisputably romantic as the noble prince of Sherwood Forest, and defender of the poor.

#FridayFave #robinhood #howardpyle #classicbooks #review #theadventuresofrobinhood #bookreview #classic #greatbooks #timeless #recommended #oldbooks #sherwoodforest #nikiflorica #bookblog #amreading

Sat. Spotlight

CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS AND THE TERRIFYING RETURN OF TIPPY TINKLETROUSERS

From the captain underpants series , vol. 9.

by Dav Pilkey & illustrated by Dav Pilkey ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 28, 2012

Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.

Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.

Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…

Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Scholastic

Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012

THE MECHANICAL MIND OF JOHN COGGIN

by Elinor Teele ; illustrated by Ben Whitehouse ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 12, 2016

A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish.

The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.

Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)

Pub Date: April 12, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016

CHILDREN'S ACTION & ADVENTURE FICTION | CHILDREN'S FAMILY | CHILDREN'S ENTERTAINMENT & SPORTS

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Book reviews for the thirsty

Book Review – Robin Hood: Hacking, Heists and Flaming Arrows by Robert Muchamore

A town. A forest. A hero.

You can’t go far without a quick brain and some rule-bending in a place like Locksley. After its vast car plants shut down, the prosperous town has become a wasteland of empty homes, toxic land and families on the brink. And it doesn’t help that the authorities are in the clutches of profit-obsessed Sheriff of Nottingham, in cahoots with underworld boss Guy Gisborne.

When his dad is framed for a robbery, Robin and his brother Little John are hounded out of Locksley and must learn to survive in the Sherwood forest, stretching three hundred kilometres and sheltering the free spirits and outlaws. But Robin is determined to do more than survive. Small, fast and deadly with a bow, he hatches a plan to join forces with Marion Maid, harness his inimitable tech skills and strike a blow against Gisborne and the Sheriff.

I received this book from the publisher via Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

Oh wow, and not in a good way. I really didn’t enjoy this. I think it will perhaps still be popular with teenage boys – especially if they enjoyed the Cherub series, but for me it was underwritten and didn’t really go anywhere.

For a book with heists in the subtitle, you get only one, right at the end, to set up a Robin Hood type personna. It just wasn’t enough for me. I love the Robin Hood legend, and I really wanted to love this. And while I liked some of the characters, the recognisable ones didn’t really age down that well.

Little John in particular looked to be okay until half way when his entire characterisation was wiped and restarted. Marion maid is okay; but didn’t really have the ring I wanted from Marion. Her family is excellent, but sadly this goes back to the ages – we have to have the outlaws and forest people be adults, and that will forever mess with the story. Robin himself read a little two dimensional, but I liked that his heart was in the right place. He’s trying to save his town and his family.

Plus Muchamore is a British author and this is being produced by a British publisher, so WHY is so much of the book Americanised? From little things like strip malls, to bigger things in how they talked and behaved, this is a book written for an American audience. I understand that, for a US release this works, but a good edit for a UK audience really wouldn’t have gone amiss. It was jarring and I feel will massively impact how well the book does here.

I did like some of the setting, the whole thing around Gisbourne, and the hacking. But that’s about it. The whole book is a prequel to one where Robin is more set up as Robin Hood character, and as a result not enough happens. This is all backstory, and reads like it.

Buy Robin Hood: Hacking, Heists and Flaming Arrows from Waterstones .

geekylorraine

I’ve had my eye on this, so it’s a shame to read that it’s all background and Americanised! Especially if it’s a British author and publisher!

Books and Lemon Squash

Yeah I found it so bizarre

Book Club Mom

Hi, this is an honest and fair review of a book you didn’t care for and I appreciate it. Not every book is going to thrill us, so it’s refreshing to come across an honest review that gives good solid reasons. Great post!

Melissa Rogerson: Review of The Adventures of Robin Hood

The Adventures of Robin Hood

Designer & Artist: Michael Menzel Publisher: Kosmos Players 1-4 Age: 10+ Time: about an hour per chapter

On the recommendation of friends, I added The Adventures of Robin Hood to my “interested” list and fortunately my husband Fraser was listening, and delivered with a Christmas gift. Since then, we’ve played it seven times, completing our first full play through.

Robin Hood is a cooperative, heavily story-driven game for 1-4 players, who take on the role of the notorious outlaw and his band of Merrie Men (including one woman, Maid Marian, ably played by my beloved, and Little John, played by our adult daughter The Bigster). It’s a highly scripted game that nevertheless gives the players a very open set of choices, and that offers some innovative gameplay features. I’m going to focus on three of them which, I find, make the game interesting as a set of mechanisms as well as as an unfolding story – the board design, the story, and the movement – before I talk about the game as a whole. There’s one spoiler about an advanced rule for subsequent playthroughs but otherwise I have been careful to avoid giving anything away.

The board design

The first novelty here is the design of the board. It’s a thick, double-layered board, with tiles set into it. As you play, you interact with the tiles, maybe flipping them over or removing to disable them or change their use. You put them back into the board at the end of each “chapter” and may be told to reset some or all of them when next you play. Some tiles might even “move” – or possibly allow you to move – from one place to another.

You interact with the tiles by referencing them in the hardback book that comes with the game; exploring tile 450, for example, means that you turn to page 450 (hint: there is no tile 450). This is one of the design decisions that really gives the game a luxurious, overproduced feeling. The book could have been an app – might even have, in some ways, have been better as an app – but if we associate Robin Hood with reading, the book is a reminder of that connection. Cleverly, it comes with two bookmarks – the gold bookmark marks your place in the story, and the red bookmark reminds you of any essential game mechanisms that you might need to check on later.

When you turn to the indicated page, you are presented with a chunk of exposition and (usually) a choice. In a multiplayer game, a player who is not taking the action should read the exposition text so as to avoid spoilers. For example, on entering a Tavern (there isn’t one, no spoilers here), you might read the following:

The apparently obvious choice isn’t always the ‘correct’ one, and it’s possible that you might get nothing from an encounter. (That annoyingly squirrelly person that Maid Marian kept trying to bond with across seven games, for example). But it’s also possible that they might give you some valuable advice.

You’ll often be given game directions too, at this point:

In-game movement is clever too. In theory, the board has open movement – you can move anywhere except through walls, trees, rocks, or the river. Each player has five tokens – two standing figures, two ‘short’ movement figures and one ‘long’ movement figure. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out, on Maid Marian’s behalf, that her movement figures have the best billowy cloak. You move by lining up your movement figures from the current location of your standing figure, then placing your other standing figure at the end and removing the movement tiles from the board. If you don’t use your ‘long’ movement, you can add an extra white success cube to the Bag of Everything. As a result, we spent most of our games trying to avoid long movement if at all possible. There was also some negotiation about exactly how much the figures had to touch a tile to be considered “on” the tile. Let’s just say, the game would have been a lot harder if I hadn’t been outvoted.

Putting it together

So … the Bag of Everything, huh?

At the start of each chapter, you stock the cloth bag with cubes (6 violet ‘failure’ cubes and 1 white ‘success’ cube for each player) as well as discs, which represent the players, the forces of Bad, and other actors and items that appear during the game. Turn order is determined by drawing discs and taking actions until they have all been removed from the bag, at which point they are returned and a new round begins. For additional randomness, a grey disc allows any player character to take a move and the white disc allows each of the player characters to take a move. Each player, therefore, gets two or three moves for every one that the bad guys take – which is good, because … well … Very Bad Things might happen otherwise.

[imagine a Very Smug picture of Disney’s Prince John here, if it wasn’t copyright]

The game is cooperative, which means that the players are left to determine who goes when with the white disc, and who gets to take the grey disc action(s). It’s also possible to pick up extra movements as the game progresses by *mumble mumble*.

When a red disc is drawn, evil stalks the land. First, the Hope In The Land sinks on the Banner of Hope – by one per player , which can be quite tense. This moves the Bard of Hope towards the Bad End (yes really, we kept calling it Bag End by mistake). I love a good Doom Tracker; if it ever reaches the Bad End then the news is not good for our Merrie Outlaws. Guards are added to the game – they are flippable tiles – and then attack anybody who is in the same area, in sunlight. Finally, an hourglass is removed from the Bad End, signalling that the players are slowly running out of time to achieve their mission. If you ever run out of hourglasses, you lose.

On their turns, players can try to defeat guards and other characters by pulling cubes from the Bag of Everything – typically, you get three chances but can increase this by using weapons and special powers. You stop drawing when you run out of chances or draw a success cube – so ideally, two violet and one white will help to position you for a win. This mechanism of course means that failure isn’t quite as dire as it could be – you’ve just helped to slim down the bag for the other players. At least, that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. Defeating guards adds to the Hope in the Land, meaning that sometimes you have to be distracted from your overall mission just to keep hope alive.

Thoughts and concerns

We’ve played seven games, as I said – one full play through. The story forks at one point, so there are a couple of chapters that we missed that we intend to go through and play. The game is set up for at least two full replays, with alternate text for your second play through and ‘harder’ rules for the player characters. I played it and enjoyed it, as did Fraser, but it was our elder daughter Bigster who really loved playing the game, practically hounding us to play. “Let’s just play another chapter,” she would say – we played 3 in a row, one day – so we finished the last six chapters over 4 days of a long weekend. “Can we just leave it set up?”. Given that health constraints mean she can’t often settle in for long gaming sessions, six hours or so of games in four days was quite a commitment.

So let’s think about the game and where it might sit on the Banner of Hope. At the top – the Good End – is definitely the production quality. The board is beautiful – the art, the inlays, the little sleeve to hold the eight pieces in the box. The book is a quality hardback, although as something of a paper nerd I found the pages themselves to be a bit lower quality than expected. The wooden pieces are gorgeous, the cubes and bag adequate, the hourglasses totally adorable. Some of the frequently-flipped tiles, especially the guards and *mumble*, are starting to look a bit worn and might benefit from some spray adhesive before we play again.

Also at the Good End is the movement mechanism – I really enjoyed lining up my little dudes and checking how far I could get. We’d often plan out moves in advance like this, even before it was our turn. Can I get to the important tile or can you, Little John? And can we do it without using our Long Movement? Maybe I should try Warhammer 40K and invest in a good tape measure?

In the Middle End, I think, is replayability. As I said, we’ve played 7 times, for about an hour each. The first game is really a tutorial and subsequent games do a very nice job of introducing new rules – but just as you really feel you’ve learned all the rules, you finish the story. I wanted to be a frolicking outlaw in Sherwood Forest and go to all the places, but we’ve finished our first playthrough with quite a lot of unexplored areas. That’s intriguing, but I’m not sure we really have any reason to go there – is this just setup for possible future expansions? I gather there are a couple of expansions on the Kosmos website already, so hope that there will be more.

Also in the Middle End is the book. This is kind of at the Good End and at the Bad End; I’m so conflicted about the book. On the one hand, Robin Hood is a story so the book fits well. On the other, there’s a LOT of page flipping. To use the earlier example, to explore tile 450 you turn to page 450. There’s a little flowchart that says if you’re currently doing chapter 3, you turn to page 453. Then someone who’s not on turn needs to read that bit because you don’t want to be spoiled by seeing the different outcomes from selecting from the available choices. Then you take back the book to read on their turn, etc etc. It’s a weird and annoying process overhead that could be done by an app – which would also remove the issues of spoiler risk for solo play. And it’s particularly annoying when you go through all of that to try to talk to Maid Marian’s buddy who NEVER HAS ANYTHING USEFUL TO SAY EVER IN THE WHOLE GAME. Ahem.

At Bad Bag End – apart from the lack of Hobbitses – is the book as well. This is kind of my thing, and I know it’s easy to criticise a major undertaking, but the translation is a bit lacking. It’s that usual issue where the translators probably never had a copy of the game to play, and may not even have been interested in doing that, which seems to lead to weird phrasings and some inaccuracies. Würfel translated as dice (here it should be cubes) is an issue that just shouldn’t be happening any more. I remember doing emergency repairs on a translation for this issue back in the late 2000s. Are they Würfel mit pips or Würfel ohne pips? It just annoys me because it should be obvious. Similarly, every time something is added to the bag, players are directed to “throw” it into the bag. I have a sense that the translators may not have been entirely familiar with English language Robin Hood stories, because there was some theming that just didn’t quite come through – not so much that the translation was wrong, but that it could have been so much better. (An old example of this – in Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth , there’s a statue called the Weeping Madonna. But when the game was released, this was translated back from German as the Crying Madonna. It doesn’t affect gameplay, but it seems … shoddy … thank you for listening to my 2006 translation grudge.).

Finally, the rule book. Players are explicitly told NOT to read the rule book because the rules will be explained – and they are – through the first games – but there was an opportunity to present the rule book as a straightforward reference. We felt that some information was missing – for example, were we supposed to reset the equipment board at the end of the game? There’s an implication that you should, but it’s not explicitly stated (spoiler: because in an advanced version of the game, you might be able to retain equipment) so we had a sense that we were putting ourselves at an unnecessary disadvantage while we played. We weren’t, turns out we just liked feeling that we were playing on the HARD setting. It was also unclear to us that there’s a countermix – or cubemix – limit on how many items a player can carry (I think this is clarified on an FAQ on the Kosmos website). A single reference manual might have made it easier to check this information.

There’s a question about gender here – do we really need another game with three men and one woman as characters? For me, the ‘accuracy’ of using known characters from the Robin Hood stories was more important than matching our player genders (both Bigster and I played ‘men’ and Fraser played the ‘woman’ character). There’s nothing terribly gendered about any of the character figures or narrative, so you could absolutely change this up if you wanted to. Robyn Hood and Wilhelmina Scarlett, anyone? I would have liked to see more woman NPCs though – there were three, compared to at least eight men, and two were more side quest opportunities than genuine opportunities to interact.

Lastly, and this doesn’t really belong at the Bad End, but is more of an observation: this is absolutely a cooperative game. For us, that meant that often one player had an important job to do and the rest of us just spent time pootling around in the forest beating back guards and being Merrie but not really feeling that we were contributing to the story beyond being (figurative) cannon fodder. Or we had an optional quest but chose not to bother with it because we were about to complete the main quest anyway. There was a bit of quarterbacking as well, at least from Little John who turned out to be a Very Bossy Men – and some suspension of disbelief that saw us all communicating quite perfectly via telepathy from quite distant parts of Sherwood Forest.

I found The Adventures of Robin Hood enjoyable, and it gets bonus points for just how very much The Bigster enjoyed it (unlike my beloved The Crew, sob). I look forward to playing it again, to finding out what is behind the *mumble*, and to exploring expansions. My verdict is still out on how replayable it is now that we’ve completed a full story.

Although it’s a simple game, I think this is a hard sell for casual gamers. I regularly do radio talkback, and am often reminded of how very difficult people find learning game rules – and anything out of the ordinary, like this, takes a lot of getting used to. It would be a great game to play with casual gamers, or a great ‘step 2’ game for a group to try after the usual suspects, but I think many casual groups and families would find the admin overhead of turning tiles, finding things in the book, stocking and restocking the bag, to be unexpectedly complex. If you do have family or friends who’d like to try the game, consider offering to act as the narrator (in person or, if you have access to another copy, over videoconferencing) and guide them in their use of the board. Similarly, people who like their games heavy with a side of heavy will find this frustratingly simple. We found it a nice intermission sort of game – good for simply enjoying spending time together, without needing to spend too long thinking about what to do or how to do it.

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Fraser: What Melissa said, especially about Maid Marian’s “buddy”. This game feels like a very successful board game translation of a computer game or a choose your own adventure.

Casual gamers may well be a tad overwhelmed by the underlying driving mechanisms of the game, but like most games they could be guided through by somebody who had played it before or an experienced gamer.

Occasionally it did feel a little too scripted, i.e. in one adventure we knew we needed to go rescue [redacted], but when stopping off to talk to someone on the way to rescue [redacted] did they have anything useful to contribute? Generally not, they just told you to go “rescue [redacted]”, all except for Maid Marian’s “buddy” of course.

Dale Yu : I have now played six chapters, and honestly, I don’t think that I’ll be coming back to this one. To put this in perspective, I am a huge fan of the Menzel adventure games; during the pandemic, I was part of an online group that managed to play through the entire Andor series online (using some pretty sweet homebrew playingcards.io scenarios). We had a great time, and I was definitely looking forward to Robin Hood.

When the game arrived, we realized that it would be hard to play online due to very unique board – there was no good way to show this online, even with the Vorpal Board technology that we had used for other games. So, we played it in person. And… it happened. Unlike Andor, it didn’t feel to me that there was much of an adventure. It felt more like a choose-your-own adventure book that inevitably got you to the same point in the story regardless of choices. That is admittedly an unfair characterization of the game, as there are puzzles to solve and choice to make – but overall, it just felt that Mark Jackson was reading a story to me.

The board is super neat, and the way the book is constructed is nice as well. There is a bit of game in trying to manage your probabilities by getting white cubes into the bag and purple cubes out of the bag. But in the end, a lot of the game felt like it came down to having the right character ask the correct NPC how to solve the puzzle. When you did that, you moved forward. When you didn’t, you had to try the same thing again until you got it right.

I have seen others have a great time with it, especially those with younger kids. And I think that for the right group, this has the potential for a great game. I was hoping it was going to be the next Andor, and it didn’t meet that need for me. If I had young kids around, it would be a great way to get them to read a bit and learn how to play cooperative games. For my group of all 40-somethings, this isn’t the right game for us. It’s probably a case of “it’s me, not you” as a lot of other people have raved about the game (see the other reviews included here), but that doesn’t change the fact that it just didn’t click for me.

Simon Neale : Having played through and thoroughly enjoyed My City with my wife and daughter during the pandemic lockdown, Robin Hood looked like a good follow on game. How right I was – we are still working our way through the chapters and really enjoying the experience. Maybe due to our desire to explore everything and not immediately follow any hints given, each game has gone to the last draw from the bag! These knife edge endings have really added to the growing suspense during each adventure and I have a nasty feeling that our luck will eventually run out.

I have previously played through Legends of Andor with my gaming group and I can see elements of those games that Michael Menzel has incorporated into Robin Hood. I agree with Melissa and Fraser that this game is quite light and family friendly, but I’m still getting a great sense of enjoyment out of playing it.

Steph Hodge : Played the entire campaign and for the most part, really enjoyed it. I found it had a lot of unique ideas and I enjoyed the huge book to read from. I didn’t have a preset expectation for what I wanted to happen so I just rolled with it. The final chapter was the biggest letdown for me and in a way, ruined the game. I don’t regret the time spent, and I found the game worth the playthrough. It will be a game I think many people will enjoy.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

I love it! – Bigster (guest review), Simon Neale
I like it. – Melissa, Fraser, Steph
Neutral. – John P
Not for me… – Dale Y

About Melissa

2 responses to melissa rogerson: review of the adventures of robin hood.

Thank you Melissa for making your overview of the game an entertaining read. Glad to hear someone covering Kosmos and Michael Menzel’s games.

Hi, I like your work because the information provided in the article is quite useful and important. I love games and I have a huge craze of playing games. Please share more article like this.

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Spaghetti Book Club - Book Reviews by Kids for Kids

Robin hood (a stepping stone book).

Written by Annie Ingle

Illustrated by Domenick D'Andrea

Reviewed by Jake R. (age 7)

The main character in my book is Robin Hood. The book tells about Robin Hood’s adventures as he tries to take money from the sheriff and give that money to the poor. Robin Hood also helps the ones who need to be helped in other ways. He has some people who help him that live with him in the forest. One time Robin Hood even helped a poor knight keep his son from going to jail.

I liked the book because it was about Robin Hood, and he could shoot an arrow in the dead center of the target. My favorite part in this story was the archery. Robin Hood reminded me of me because a lot of times when I shoot an arrow, I hit it in the middle. There is something unique about this story because in the end Robin Hood became a knight.

I recommend this book because there is a lot of mystery and adventure in the book. I think that Blake and Nathaniel would like to read this book because guys like to shoot arrows. I recommend this book to them because of the archery, and that would probably be their favorite part. I like the whole book, though, but mostly the archery.

The Adventures Of Robin Hood: By Howard Pyle - Illustrated › Customer reviews

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The Adventures Of Robin Hood: By Howard Pyle - Illustrated

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The Adventures of Robin Hood

Roger lancelyn green , arthur hall ( illustrator ).

320 pages, Paperback

First published November 30, 1956

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Roger Lancelyn Green

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Book review of Robin Hood
Very nice book I read it 5 times and nice review. Rubesh. Great Book to read. Everyone has heard the stories of Robin Hood, but what if there was more to the tale than what was told; what if there was something paranormal or supernatural going on in Sherwood Forest. An old hermit finds a man at death's door, and nurses him back to relative health.
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle
64,320 ratings1,436 reviews. Dünya tarihinin en ünlü halk kahramanlarından biri olan Robin Hood, zorlu bir dönemde ortaya çıkmış ve yoksulların, mazlumların koruyucusu olmuştur. Tarihte böyle birinin yaşayıp yaşamadığı kesin olarak bilinmez. Ancak dönemin halk türkülerinde ve hikâyelerinde Robin Hood'un adı ve ...
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood Full Book Summary
After a few years, King Henry dies and is succeeded by King Richard. Robin Hood ventures out of Sherwood for the first time in many years and encounters an outlaw, Guy of Gisbourne, who has been sent by the Sheriff to catch Robin Hood. Robin kills Guy of Gisbourne and dresses in his clothes. He goes to an inn, where the Sheriff is waiting for him.
Book Review: The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
Book Review: The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood. Legends of Robin Hood have been floating around since the 14th century. Scholars debate whether early ballads and stories were based on a real person. In his earliest versions, Robin was just a crook, sometimes short-tempered, according to Wikipedia. He did not rob from the poor, but he didn't ...
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood: Full Book Analysis
Full Book Analysis. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood recounts episodic tales of the infamous outlaw Robin Hood and his band of men, who take the justice system into their own hands by helping the needy and punishing those they believe to be corrupt. Though Robin Hood considers himself to be a moral figure, his hypocrisy and enigmatic moral ...
Book Review: Robin Hood
Robin Hood hits dead center when it comes to excellence in fiction. It does not read like mid-twentieth century novel which it is. It feels much, much older. This is presumably due to the fine research which the author did in preparation for its composition. Reading this book one feels transported back to "Merry Old England".
Robin Hood by Henry Gilbert
3.84. 3,773 ratings140 reviews. Robin Hood is the best-loved outlaw of all time. In this edition, Henry Gilbert tells of the adventures of the Merry Men of Sherwood Forest - Robin himself, Little John, Friar Tuck, Will Scarlet, and Alan-a-Dale, as well as Maid Marian, good King Richard, and Robin's deadly enemies Guy of Gisborne and the evil ...
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood: Study Guide
Overview. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, written and illustrated by Howard Pyle and first published in 1883, is a collection of stories about the legendary English outlaw. The book begins with Robin's birth and follows him through his youth, his outlawry in Sherwood Forest, and his romance with Maid Marian. Pyle's Robin Hood is a noble ...
Robin Hood
Posted in Book Reviews 5/5 stars Book Reviews classics robin hood. 【 ROBIN HOOD 】 ★★★★★ This was a heartful and merry read. Genre: ClassicAuthor: Howard PylePublished: 1883Publisher: Barnes & Noble (this edition)Pages: 435 (leatherbound) I somehow never thought to consider what the original tale of Robin Hood would be like.
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire is an 1883 novel by the American illustrator and writer Howard Pyle.Pyle compiled the traditional Robin Hood ballads as a series of episodes of a coherent narrative. For his characters' dialog, Pyle adapted the late Middle English of the ballads into a dialect suitable for children.. The novel is notable for taking the ...
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
Will Gamwell, who becomes Will Scarlet, beats Robin Hood in their fight with quarterstaffs. Midge, the miller's son, throws barley flower in Robin's, Little John's, Arthur a Bland's and Will Scarlet's faces and then beats them with his staff. A mob forms to hurt David of Doncaster after he wins a wrestling contest.
Book Review: "Robin Hood: The Life and Legend of an Outlaw" by Stephen
How did his legend change over time? Stephen Basdeo, an Assistant Professor of History at Richmond University, dives into discovering the truth about Robin Hood in his latest book, "Robin Hood: The Life and Legend of an Outlaw". I would like to thank Pen and Sword Books for sending me a copy of this book. I grew up really enjoying tales of ...
The Adventures of Robin Hood, by Howard Pyle: Review
The Adventures of Robin Hood, by Howard Pyle: Review. "In merry England in the time of old, when good King Henry the Second ruled the land, there lived within the green glades of Sherwood Forest, near Nottingham Town, a famous outlaw whose name was Robin Hood. No archer ever lived that could speed a grey goose shaft with such skill and cunning ...
The Adventures of Robin Hood: An English Legend
Paul Creswick, J.C. Holt (Afterword), N.C. Wyeth (Illustrator) 4.02. 1,535 ratings114 reviews. Recounts the life and adventures of Robin Hood, who, with his band of followers, lived as an outlaw in Sherwood Forest dedicated to fight against tyranny. Genres Classics Fiction Historical Fiction Adventure Fantasy Literature Mythology.
ROBIN HOOD
The flat effect, suggestive of anime and the work of Dave McKean, heightens the sense that readers are looking into a different, long-ago world. Sure to attract new followers for a perennially popular hero. (research and bibliography) (Folklore. 9-13) 0. Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2012. ISBN: 978-1-84686-357-8. Page Count: 112. Publisher: Barefoot Books.
Book Review
A town. A forest. A hero. You can't go far without a quick brain and some rule-bending in a place like Locksley. After its vast car plants shut down, the prosperous town has become a wasteland of empty homes, toxic land and families on the brink. And it doesn't help that the authorities are in the clutches of profit-obsessed Sheriff of Nottingham, in cahoots with underworld boss Guy ...
Melissa Rogerson: Review of The Adventures of Robin Hood
The book could have been an app - might even have, in some ways, have been better as an app - but if we associate Robin Hood with reading, the book is a reminder of that connection. Cleverly, it comes with two bookmarks - the gold bookmark marks your place in the story, and the red bookmark reminds you of any essential game mechanisms ...
Best Robin Hood Fiction (91 books)
A selection of best Robin Hood fiction in novels and short stories. flag. All Votes Add Books To This List. 1. The Outlaws of Sherwood. by. Robin McKinley. 3.79 avg rating — 11,888 ratings. score: 2,924 , and 30 people voted.
Robin Hood (A Stepping Stone Book)
The main character in my book is Robin Hood. The book tells about Robin Hood's adventures as he tries to take money from the sheriff and give that money to the poor. Robin Hood also helps the ones who need to be helped in other ways. He has some people who help him that live with him in the forest. One time Robin Hood even helped a poor knight keep his son from going to jail. I liked the ...
Robin Hood by Louis Rhead
4.00. 247 ratings24 reviews. Robin Hood, skilled archer, huntsman, robber of the rich and champion of the poor has many adventures in Sherwood Forest. Friar Tuck, Maid Marian, Little John and Will Scarlet are all part of his merry band of outlaws. Genres Fiction Classics Adventure Fantasy Historical Fiction Historical Literature.
The Adventures Of Robin Hood: By Howard Pyle
Humorous to find illustrations of "The Battle of Bunker Hill" and pirates fighting in a book of Robin Hood. Worth a look so long as it remains free but otherwise I plan on moving on to "The Merry Adventures Of Robinhood: Color Illustrated, Formatted for E-Readers (Unabridged Version)" ASIN: B0178BTPWW which ought be worlds better. ...
Robin Hood by Walt Disney Company
This book is very similar to the Disney movie Robin Hood. The story is about Robin Hood, a fox who is helps save a kingdom. Robin Hood meets a maiden who is also a fox and travels with Friar Tuck, a bear, together they help out the king. This story could be used in the classroom to give students the historical perspective of kingdoms and tyrants.
The Adventures of Robin Hood by Roger Lancelyn Green
pre-review everybody needs some old timey communist hijinks, from time to time review to come / 3 stars----- ... the same hidden Richard, Ivenhoe turns up in this book exactly as Robin Hood turns up in that book. And the Prince John in the Flynn Hood in the 1930's has the same feel and weight as that in the books. He talks the same way (he's ...

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Book Review: “Robin Hood: The Life and Legend of an Outlaw” by Stephen Basdeo

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Book Review – Robin Hood: Hacking, Heists and Flaming Arrows by Robert Muchamore

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