I have a soft spot for fictional monastics. As a (slightly eccentric) child I often wanted to be a monk – being a lapsed female Hindu, however, and the proud owner of a noisy and irreligious toddler, it's now unlikely I'll realise this ambition. So I'm grateful that enough imaginative portrayals of the cloister exist to transport me by bookish means into these austere surroundings. Recently, to my delight, I've found a lot of brilliant monks in children's novels, both classic and new.
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