The Trumpeter of Krakow
Recommended. Age: 12+. A Catholic review of this book for parents.
Our review
This is an adventure set inside a Catholic city, and it shows. A family keeps a sworn promise at great cost, a holy priest-scholar stands by them, and a trumpeter dies at his post for Poland and Our Lady. Alchemy and hypnotism appear, but they ruin the man who chases them. The reservation is the old-fashioned prose, and a one-sided picture of the Tartars as merciless.
For parents
Read aloud from 10, independent reading from 12. Good Books for Catholic Kids places it at 12 to 13. Ask why the family keeps an oath that puts them in danger. Ask what the alchemist's hunger for secret power costs him, and why the Church warns against it (CCC 2116-2117).