The Language of Fire by Stephanie Hemphill

This extraordinary verse novel from award-winning author Stephanie Hemphill dares to imagine how an. Extensive historical detail will prove fatiguing for most readers even as Hemphill’s interpretation of known events, including Jehanne’s argument that she be released from an arranged marriage and vivid renderings of her long imprisonment, bring a sense of frail humanity to this outsize historical figure. The Language of Fire is a lyrical, dark, and moving look at the life of Joan of Arc, who as a teen girl in the fifteenth century commanded an army and helped crown a king of France. An author’s note explores liberties taken with the historical record, such as condensing the three voices that Jehanne reported hearing into one. The Language of Fire is a lyrical, dark, and moving look at the life of Joan of Arc, who as a teen girl in the fifteenth century commanded an army and helped crown a king of France. The heroine’s early years are imagined filled with angst and frustration (“It’s not as if I ask to be/ the girl on the margins”), while her later adolescence brims with certainty about her call and mission as she travels among the soldiers she leads, braves repeated threats, and suffers battle wounds. Hemphill ( Hideous Love) refers to Joan as Jehanne-as the book’s subject herself signed it-and covers her young life, beginning at age 13 her interactions with France’s leaders her subsequent military victories her capture by the English and her trial for heresy and subsequent burning at the stake at age 19. This extraordinary verse novel from award-winning author Stephanie Hemphill dares to imagine how an ordinary girl became a great leader, and ultimately saved a nation. Free verse poems written in the first person tell the familiar tale of the medieval teenage peasant prophesied to liberate France from England. The Language of Fire is a lyrical, dark, and moving look at the life of Joan of Arc, who as a teen girl in the fifteenth century commanded an army and helped crown a king of France. This extraordinary verse novel from award-winning author Stephanie Hemphill dares to imagine how an ordinary girl became a great leader, and ultimately.

The Language of Fire by Stephanie Hemphill