Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Janet Gray and Illustrated by Robert Lawson is a 317-page hardcover published by The Viking Press, New York.  First published in 1942.  This copy published in 1970 and illustrated by Robert Lawson.  The dust jacket has some shelf wear and a closed tear along the top edge of the spine.  Inside, the book is in very good condition.

Book Summary

"A road's a kind of holy thing," said Roger the Minstrel to his son Adam.  "That's why it's a good work to keep a road in repair, like giving alms to the poor or tending the sick.  It's open to the sun and the wind and the rain.  It brings all kinds of people and all parts of England together.  And it's home to a minstrel, even though he may happen to be sleeping in a castle."

And Adam, though only eleven, was to remember his father's words when his beloved dog, Nick, was stolen and Roger had disappeared and he found himself traveling alone along these same great roads, searching the fairs and market towns for his father and his dog.

Here is a story of thirteenth-century England, so absorbing and lively that for all its authenticity it scarcely seems "historical."  Although crammed with odd facts and lore about that time when "longen folke to goon on pilgrimages,"  its scraps of song and hymn and jongleur's tale of the period seem as new-minted and fresh as the day they were devised, and Adam is a real boy inside his gay striped surcoat.