Crispin The Cross of Lead by Avi is about how a young boy is born into a family of serfs and is at the bottom of the class system. Crispin has experienced many deaths throughout his life such as his mother named Asta. As soon as his mother dies, Crispin runs away only to know that he has become a wolf’s head basically anyone can kill him. He finds a man named Bear who acts like a father to him and teaches him many lessons he didn’t know previously. Bear was a juggler (mummer) who traveled to many places in order to earn money. Eventually, Crispin joined him and traveled with him to Great Wexly, a city in Britain ruled by Lord Furnival who died a few days earlier. When they enter, they see a wide variety of people with different colors for the first time since he was a serf.

He also sees John Aycliffe who is the person who proclaimed him a wolf’s head. Immediately he told Bear, but Bear tells him to be aware about suspicious people and hide in the secret spot he showed Crispin. Eventually, Bear one day got captured by soldiers and John Aycliffe, so Crispin decided to rescue him by climbing the walls and attacking John Aycliffe. Later, Crispin gets to know about his parentage that his mom was the daughter of Lord Douglas and divorced from Lord Furnival and got banished to being a serf with Crispin. On the cross of lead he receives, it wrote: Crispin son of Furnival. Which meant he was the son of Lord Furnival, the person he used to work for. Cool twist, I know right. Anyways, Bear kills John Aycliffe and Crispin wanders of into other cities with Bear his best friend.