The Wool-Pack

Nicholas is the son of a wool trader in the late 1400s in England. He is apprenticed to his father, and he notices that something is not right with visitors from Italy who sell his father's wool overseas. It is up to Nicholas, with the help of his best friend and the girl he is to marry, to figure out what is wrong and to set things right for Nicholas's father and his wool trade.

I would have loved reading this book as a kid, set as it was in times so distant from my own. It was the details the author shares with the reader that especially fascinated me—pots were set outside after eating so the dogs could lick the pots clean...Nicholas was considered a well-mannered boy because he didn't throw his bones on the floor when he ate...a bowl was used to trim the hair of Nicholas' best friend.

I thought the author did a fabulous job of explaining the habits and skills of the day that are unfamiliar to modern readers by having an unknowledgeable character ask questions and allowing the knowledgeable character to explain, and by including lots of pictures of things we might not recognize.