National Network for Equitable Library Service

Transported to medieval Germany, Jason and his friends Charlotte and Squid have to use their wits and the power of a magical bugle to help the people of Coburg fight for freedom. It's going to be 12-year-old Jason's worst summer ever - nothing to do and no one to hang out with. His family moved from Toronto to a rundown old house near Cobourg, Ontario, once the home of his great-uncle. His musician mother is travelling and his dad, a thriller writer, is usually welded to his computer. Jason explores the attic, hoping for treasure, but finds only a battered old bugle. A couple of kids do turn up, but hardly the ones he would have picked as friends - Charlotte, who is Jason's age, and her little brother Octavius, known as Squid. Their grandmother knows a lot about the bugle and its previous owner - Jason's great-uncle, a WWI soldier. She teaches Jason to play the old horn and, along a misty country road, its magical music transports the kids to medieval Germany - the old walled town of Coburg. At first, Jason only wants to go home, but he soon learns he has work to do. Is his bugle the Wunderhorn of local legend - and Jason himself the hero of the tale, the shepherd king who can restore order in the land?