Rebel Heart – at a glance
The School Reading Lists’ five word review: Family, Civil War, loyalty, historical.
Children’s book title: Rebel Heart.
Children’s author: Ally Sherrick.
Genre: Children’s fiction, historical fiction.
Published by: Chicken House Books.
ISBN: 9781915026996.
Recommended for children aged: 9-12 year-olds.
First published: Paperback March 2025.
This children’s book is ideal for: introducing the subject of the English Civil War and how it led to the temporary abolition of the monarchy. Rebel Heart also highlights the stark differences between the expectations placed on children, the rich and poor, the landed gentry and those who worked the land.
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Our review:
The year is 1645, and fourteen-year-old Merriweather Pryce’s home, Compton Blaize, is under siege from the Roundheads for the second time. However, her beloved father is away, fighting on the side of the Royalists, and she fears her stepmother, Lady Elizabeth, a Catholic by birth, is about to surrender to the troops currently bombarding her family’s land and buildings. Realising that it is up to her to find her father and save the Pryce family legacy, she enlists the aid of her young friend, Will, to lend her some clothes before she cuts her hair and disguises herself as a boy. She then steals away, determined to travel to Oxford, where she is sure her father waits for her.
War, however, offers no certainties, and before the day is over, Merri is captured by a small group of Roundheads! Threatened with dire consequences if she tries to flee, she is forced to join them on their journey to meet Cromwell and his armies. Even with the help of a boy named Ned, Merriweather is unable to escape the clutches of an evil and treacherous Protestant priest, and the two friends find themselves experiencing horrors they could never have imagined during the battle of Naseby.
Having witnessed the Royalists’ sound defeat, Ned lends Merri his faithful pony, and she sets off for home, discovering her father’s fate along the way. When she arrives at Compton Blaize, she finds her stepmother has changed her plans, but, as the siege continues, Merri must accept the imminent loss of her home. Although her worst nightmare seems to be unfolding before her eyes, Merri finally realises that what is worth saving is actually within her grasp and that, wherever they end up, her family and their loyalty to each other are worth fighting for, regardless of which side others think they support.
Our verdict:
Rebel Heart is an excellent resource concentrating on the English Civil War. It’s so full of facts you don’t even realise you are assimilating them as you follow Merriweather over the course of six days in June 1645. The horrors she witnesses in the villages close to her home are similar in many ways to those of her own family. The fear and desperation she both witnesses and experiences, however, make her more sympathetic to the feelings of everyone unwittingly caught up in the conflict, as well as making her reconsider her blind loyalty to her father’s beliefs.
There is clear evidence of how quickly Merriweather’s opinions change, and she obviously has to grow up very fast. Her relationship with her father’s second wife, who is Catholic, is a case in point, as is her reluctance to abandon her home, her friends, and her family to an enemy she didn’t understand at the start. Shocked to discover soldiers on both sides committing atrocities, which today would be described as war crimes, Merriweather also found it difficult to believe there were honourable and truthful men fighting for the Roundheads, and ultimately it was they who changed her opinion of the world around her and how innocently she had viewed it. There is no overly happy or unrealistic ending here. Instead, the Pryce family will face a future which may or may not permit a return to their family home but will ultimately allow them to remain together once the conflict is resolved.
There is interesting information at the conclusion of Rebel Heart, as well as relevant websites and places to visit to continue the learning experience.
Teaching points and book club discussion ideas:
- Merriweather disguised herself before leaving home. Why was that? How different would her life have progressed if she had been a boy? Would her father have taken her to war with him, or expected her to protect her home and family in his place regardless?
- Merriweather’s stepmother was a Catholic, the same religion as King Charles I’s wife. Rumours abounded about how she would persuade the King to pledge his allegiance to Rome. How would these rumours have spread when the country was at war and very few people could actually read?
- The responsibilities of women throughout history have increased when their countries were at war. How did women’s roles in the 1600s differ from those called to action in the 1930s and ’40s?
- Merriweather took very little with her when she left Compton Blaize. The compass and tinder box were necessities, but the ring wasn’t. If you had to choose one thing to take with you on a quest, what would you choose?
Many thanks to Chicken House Books for the review copy.
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