It tells the true story of a 12 th century boy in Krakow who dies will blowing a trumpet on the town walls during the invasion of the Tartars. Kelly in 1928 and won a Newbery award in 1929. Full of suspense and adventure, The Trumpeter of Krakow concludes with Joseph using the legend of the broken note of the Heynal to sound an alarm and thus, save Krakow from treachery and a devastating fire.This book was written by Eric P. And soon, they all discover the reason the Charnetskis are being sought: Joseph's father has the Great Tarnov Crystal, so powerful as to be a danger in the wrong hands. But their new home is in the same building as an alchemist and an evil student who has taken control of the goodnatured alchemist. They change their name, go into hiding, and even begin working as trumpeters in the Church of Our Lady, playing the broken Heynal on the hour. They make their way to Krakow, where it quickly becomes clear they are being pursued by nefarious forces, though Joseph does not understand why. The story follows young Joseph Charnetski and his family as they flee their home in the Ukraine ahead of rampaging Tartars. The rest of the book is a fictionalized account of 15th-century Krakow as it moves from the 'dark' ages into the scientific era.

It was also during this time that he wrote The Trumpeter of Krakow, a story that celebrates the bravery and beauty of the Polish people despite all odds. Kelly came to Poland, joining them in 'building Poland into a very miracle of a nation' as he called it in an autobiographical note for The Horn Book collection. In those tenuous years between the wars, Poland managed to preserve and even strengthen its national spirit and culture, much of which was retained as Polish immigrants came to the United States. Sitting as it does between Germany and various Russian territories, its restoration in 1918 was doomed to be short-lived as its population was decimated by the Holocaust, and it became a communist outpost (or Satellite State) of the Soviet Union following WWII. Centuries before, Poland had been a thriving and powerful country, but for decades it had been the victim of ongoing power struggles in Europe and Asia.

In 1919, the world was still reeling from the catastrophes of World War I, and the nation of Poland was shaking off its feathers having been reborn from the ashes of war.

The trumpeter of krakow