The Adventures of Sir Balin the Ill-Fated (The Knights' Tales Series, 4)

I’ve read this to “help” my 9 year old with his book report (aka I’m doing all the work 😅) I love this type of sly humor and witty writing. I’m going to go back and read the rest of the series with my kiddo. Hopefully the other books have what this book had; adventure, fight scenes, romance, fancy British cursing, and shear silliness. So much fun highly recommend this for adults and kids.

haven't read it yet

Sir Balin of the Two Swords would be a better title. This is a great book- humor, adventure, a Questing Lady (very well-written) and the sheer idiocy of fatalism ("I'm doomed to do X because some ol' goober who wandered in prophesied I would when I was born.."). Gerald Morris does an excellent job of dealing with one of the worst and least popular sections of the Arthurian saga: Twin brothers who kill each other because they're each too dumb to learn the identity of their opponent before whacking him. By applying the common sense of even a mentally-deficient ground squirrel, this "Terrible Fate" could be avoided, yet hundreds of years of Arthurian literary convention (until Morris, anyway) argue this is a foregone conclusion. Morris' sly mocking of the adoration which even otherwise sensible people have for the flagrant stupidity of the Shakespearian tragedy is enjoyable throughout this novel. Highly recommend this!

I have read all of the other books in the "The Knights' Tales Series". Both my eight year old daughter and myself have enjoyed these modern additions to the body of Arthurian tales. Unfortunately, "The Adventures of Sir Balin" is the weakest book in the series. The story's take on fate and our the ability to control one's destiny is a bit too convoluted for an eight year old to understand. Morris' use of flowery "olde" English is also kind of annoying and takes away from the book. Sadly, not one of Morris' better efforts.

This is such a fun book! We used it as part of our literature based history curriculum.

This book was fun. My son likes all the books in this series and wishes there were more.

This book had a little more violence than the other books, I thought. It gets better as you get into it and it did make my boys laugh (ages 6 and 8).

It is a really good book because it's not to long but it is not to short either.It also was very cool.

Grandson read it himself and really enjoyed it

Gerald Morris hat mich mit vielen seiner Bücher begeistert. Die Adventures, für ein jüngeres Publikum gedacht, sind für einen erwachsenen Leser ein kurzweiliges Vergnügen. Kurzweilig auch, weil rasch gelesen. Sir Balin macht mir besonders Spaß und ich habe die Geschichte gerade wieder durchgelesen. Keine Spoiler - aber wie die Prophezeiung erfüllt wird und doch nicht erfüllt, finde ich großartig.

El libro se lo dejaron leer en el Colegio, recomendable para niños de quinto grado o para niños de 11 años o más.