The King's Fifth
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| The King's Fifth | |
 |
|
| Author | Scott O'Dell |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Children's novel |
| Publisher | Houghton Mifflin |
| Publication date | September 1966 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover, Paperback) |
| Pages | 272 pp (hardcover) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-395-06963-7 (hardcover), ISBN 0-440-94538-0 (paperback) |
The King's Fifth is a novel by Scott O'Dell that was the inspiration for the cartoon TV series The Mysterious Cities of Gold. It is written in a style that will easily be followed by young adults[citation needed]. It describes (from a teenager Spanish Conquistador's point of view) how the European search for gold in New World of the Americas affected people's lives and minds.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
The story takes place in a time when Spanish Conquistadors adventurers roamed the New World of the Americas in search for the mythical gold treasures of the dethroned Native Americans.
Estéban is a teenager cartographer of the Spanish Conquistadors Army. The story starts in his jail cell, where he is waiting for his trial for tax evasion. More specifically, he is suspected for finding a treasure without submitting the Quinto Real (Royal fifth to the king of Spain).
However, every authoritative figure in his trial or his jail only really wants one thing - to get Estéban to reveal the location of the gold he found. Estéban agrees to draw his jail guard a map, but uses the provided writing materials to write a secret journal. In this journal Estéban describes how he joined a small army band of Spaniards to seek the "Seven Golden Cities of Cíbola". Their guide on this dangerous journey was a volunteering younger teenager Native American girl, Zia. She was brought along by Estéban, who met her in the army from which the band was divided from. Being the only one in the group without any political agenda (although Estéban does realize her personal agenda eventually), Zia was also the only one to eventually preserve both her life and freedom.
[edit] Characters
- Estéban de Sandoval - a teenager mapmaker to the expedition
- Zia Troyano - a younger teenager Native American guide
- Captain Blas de Mendoza (very loosely based on Antonio de Mendoza) - an aristocrat in search of gold
- Father Francisco - a priest to the expedition who joined in as a Spanish missionary and an explorer
- Roa and Zuñiga - an initially comedy duo who are Mendoza's cronies
[edit] Adaptations
[edit] TV series
The book was the inspiration for the 1982-1983 anime cartoon TV series The Mysterious Cities of Gold. The characters take their names from the book, the high-level quest is the same, and the "golden lake" scene from the book is also present in the cartoon, but the similarities end there (the cartoon has motifs of fantasy and science fiction). The cartoon is set in South America, whereas the expedition in the book is around California, in North America.
[edit] Matching characters
- Esteban - Child of the Sun, sneaking aboard a ship from Spain to the New World to search for his long-lost father
- Zia - an Incan teenager, kidnapped to and then from Spain, in order to be a guide to her home village
- Mendoza - a wily adventurer who arrived to The Americas by becoming a navigator on the ship to the New World
- Father Rodriguez - raised Esteban in a Spanish monastery (only shown in the first episode)
- Sancho and Pedro - a comedy duo who are Mendoza's cronies. They also have very similar names to the name of the ship in the book, the Santa Pedro.
[edit] Choose Your Own Adventure book
The book is also a slight influence in the Choose Your Own Adventure Time Machine's 1987 book "Quest for the Cities of Gold," as the reader meets Esteban at different points.
[edit] Awards and nominations
 |
This article's section called "Awards and nominations" does not cite any references or sources. (November 2007) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. |
- Newbery Honor Book, 1967
- Federal Republic of Germany Jugendbuchpreis, 1970
