FernFolio

Blake Winters is not happy to find himself in Oxford, dragged there by his mother who is doing research in the ancient libraries its university colleges. He misses his father, who has remained in Canada, and worries that his parents’ separation will lead to divorce. Accompanied by his younger sister, Duck, Blake spends hours in the library at St. Jerome’s College, under the sometimes watchful eye of its librarian, while his mother works on her research.
One day, as he idly runs his fingers along the spines of the books, a book reaches out and swats at Blake. Take aback, the boy picks up the book from the floor where it falls, and notes it is a small and ordinary-looking on the outside, that it bears the name, or title, Endymion Spring, and that its pages appear to be blank. Then, as he flips through the book, he comes across a single page of writing, a riddle, one that his rather annoying little sister does not seem to be able to see.
Blake is immediately drawn to the book, which nestles into his hand and has revealed a secret riddle to him and him alone, and contemplates, briefly, slipping the book into his backpack and taking it with him. When he later meets a kindly old former professor of his mother’s, Blake asks the question that has been burning in his mind since his strange experience in the library, “What is Endymion Spring?” His words so shock and trouble the old man, that Blake begins to realize that the nondescript little book is potentially very dangerous and that, if it fell into the wrong hands, could cause unimaginable disaster. But, when he returns in secret to the library to find and take the book, the Blake discovers that the library has been ransacked. Could someone else be looking for Endymion Spring?
Slowly, the story of Endymion Spring, a small brown leather-bound book and the name of a young apprentice to Johann Gutenberg, inventor of the first printing press, is revealed. In 1452, the young Endymion is living happily in the household of his master Johann Gutenberg, when Johann Fust, a mysterious and rather sinister old friend of Gutenberg’s, arrives to stay bearing a wooden chest carved with dragons and sealed with metal clasps which Fust claims will poison anyone who attempts to break them. Awakened one night by the sound of talking, Endymion spies upon Fust and his servant Peter, and stumbles upon Fust’s terrible secret, one that so frightens him that he realizes he will have to sacrifice all that he has and is to steals the contents of the wooden chest and hide them where Fust and his minions will never find them.
Matthew Skelton’s Endymion Spring is a wonderful adventure about a book that chooses an ordinary young boy as its champion in the battle between good and evil. It intertwines the Oxford of the present day with the medieval towns of Mainz and Oxford, and captures wonderfully both the ancient city of colleges and spires, and the sights and sounds and tastes and smells of 15th century Europe. This book is sure to appeal to fans of Harry Potter and Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials!
Fern Folio Editor