The book reveals how castles were built, not only for people to live in, but also to keep enemies out. Detailed illustrations show the materials that were used and special precautions that were taken to ensure castles would provide adequate defence. Photographs show several examples of castles and castle remains that can still be visited today.
Turquoise/ Band 7 books offer literary language and extended descriptions, with longer sentences and a wide range of unfamiliar terms. Text type – A report and explanation text. There is an index on page 21 and a labelled 3-D diagram of a castle on pages 22 and 23 providing an opportunity to recap the information. Curriculum links – Art and Design: Can buildings speak?; History: Famous events (Norman Invasion). This book has been levelled for Reading Recovery. This book has been quizzed for Accelerated Reader.
Maggie Freeman was born in Trinidad, and moved to Kent, England with her family when she was ten. She now lives in London.
She has written four historical novels - the first three are currently out of print, and the fourth is due to be published shortly. Her most recent one is set in the early eleventh century, in the time of King Canute, and is set mainly in England. Her first, The Girl in the Great House, is set in England at the time of Elizabeth I, and tells the story of an impoverished girl who from unlikely beginnings finds her way to riches. Daughter of the Sea, is set in the 1590s and early 1600s - it tells the story of an enterprising fictional daughter of Sir Francis Drake, who, born in the Far East, establishes her own trading business and in due course travels to England in search of her father. Only to find things aren't as she expected. The Clock-Mender, based on a true story, is set in a small village in rural Sweden between the thirties and fifties.
Maggie also writes primary literacy educational books. These were factual to begin with, and it was doing the research for them that got her hooked on doing the research for her historical novels. More recently she has written three fictional educational books for Ransom.