Review of A Brief History of Medieval Legends by David González Ruiz [ESP – ENG]

Greetings to all members of the community, how are you? Medieval legends have always been present in our lives from an early age whenever they have been portrayed in various animated movies and children's stories, which in turn get many children to be attracted to this idea of having a fantastic life being a knight in armor. Yes, I am of course in this group, since I can remember the stories of chivalry with all its sense of duty and courage defending their ideals has caught my attention, carnivals came where in my country, Venezuela, it is a custom that children dress up as whatever they want -what their parents want actually- and enjoy that innocence. That is why when I saw this book I was interested.

It is from the same publisher and series as the one about pirates that I commented some publications ago, so I had no doubt about its quality even though it was not written by the same author, being this time a work of the author David Gonzalez Ruiz. The representations of these stories about iconic characters, although they can be wonderful in terms of entertainment, often find certain limits and have to leave aside some of the reality in order to turn the argumentative plots into something according to the public when it is aimed at children, as well as the format when it is passed to an audiovisual medium such as a cinematography, so it will always have great merit to be able to combine what happened in reality according to historians with getting to entertain the reader about what is reflected in the book.

Making use of photographs showing the statues, paintings, places in question where the events it describes took place and other references, this book takes us on a walk through history itself not only getting to the point by talking about the historical characters but also allowing us to understand the background they were in by giving us the details of what was going on around them, what were the triggers of the circumstances and the way they reasoned about them, all in a way that gives you the feeling that you are being told a fantasy story of the kind that parents usually tell their children before bedtime. For me it would be equivalent to this same thing but in an adult version, but it could be my taste for reading about history, I couldn't tell you.

_{La única versión que imagino como Rey Arturo - The only version I can imagine as King Arthur}

Reading about the story of King Arthur with the knights of his iconic round table from a necessarily historical perspective and still being interesting can mark a turning point in those skeptics who still believe that history cannot be entertaining. Moreover, here we have a compendium for all tastes, not only featuring well-known characters such as Richard I Lionheart and Beowulf, but also including love stories, women who could have made history despite their time, items that are mentioned today no matter how many years have passed since they first came up in the conversations of those hunters of greatness such as the holy grail... how can we get bored with so much versatility?

It has mature themes because it involves that which historians determined as what happened in real life through the compilations of all those fragments found over the years, as much as the cover is perceived very friendly for children and teenagers because it contains tragic facts that may not be the best for them, I always like to make these warnings for parents within the community trying to find educational alternatives. The concise information delivered in an uncomplicated manner that does not feel dense to read with its significant amount of dates, as well as historical references of the time, make this an ideal book to spend a boring afternoon reading something different that you will feel satisfied that you are also learning.

Thank you very much for reading my publication, I hope to meet you here in the next opportunity.

The cover photo is mine taken from my Redmi Note 5 phone and edited using the Canva website.