Crispin: The Cross of Lead - Read a Loud

This story is about a 13 year old boy, Crispin, who is left alone in his village once his mother dies. During this time on his own, he turns to others to help him through this difficult time. His first friendship is with the priest of the village, who he turned to for help once he was accused of theft. Promising to help him, the priest handed him a lead cross that belonged to his mother and promises to tell him who his real father is. Before he can do that though, he is killed and Crispin is forced to flee the village in order to stay alive. Once he is in the woods he meets “Bear” who stays with him throughout his journey and helps protect him against Aycliff, and is the one to kill him in the end, letting Crispin let go of his burden and leave his mother’s cross on his grave.

Some vocabulary that might need to be pre-taught include alb, beseech, crone, hag, hoist, kin, putrid, screed, sustenance and wager.

This would be a good website to use in your classroom as it discusses the major themes, setting, and characters that come up throughout the book. This would allow you to be able to assist your students in better understanding what they are learning.

This is a great website that helps “extend” what your students read in class. It gives certain questions and activities that you can use with your students that would allow them to apply their knowledge and what they just learned while reading this book.

Pre Reading:
Students can talk about what a burden is and what it feels like to be “left alone.” This would give your students the opportunity to understand the feelings of the main character before they even begin reading.

During Reading:
Students can independantly read and write down how they see Crispin struggling, and who they see helping him through out the story. This would require your students to read carefully and analysis the chapters to understand what is going on.

After Reading:
For an after reading activity teacher’s can have their students work together to create a cartoon character online in which they can describe a certain scene or event that happened in the story. Also, to extended this, students could be asked to think how this story would have been different if it was told from another characters perspective, and to express their answer through a cartoon drawing as well.

Reading Level: 4.4

Crispin: the cross of lead. (2002). New York: Hyperion Books for Children.