Milo, the Knight

If a frog can be a prince in disguise, can a beetle be a knight? This book says he can be if he puts on a suit of armour that he never takes off.

Milo is one of a long line of (beetle) knights, and he takes his heritage so seriously that it has become an obsession. He does everything in his armour, including sleeping in it. The self-imposed responsibility to be a strong protector to the beetle kingdom has become burdensome, and he hints that some kind of change would be welcome.

Milo has friends too. Most of them are knights, but sometimes
he wishes he could have other friends like the court jesters,
who are always up to something fun. He wishes he could be like them,
laughing and dancing without a care.

His main goal is to keep the kingdom safe from dragons (although we learn from an author’s aside that “no dragon has ever attacked, and no one has even seen a dragon in the past 10,000 years”). Milo keeps up his regimen of patrols, even staying out in the face of a fierce rainstorm.

All of a sudden the rain stopped. Despite this, Milo felt exhausted,
confined, and worried. To his surprise he looked down and noticed
his shiny armor was beginning to rust. It was getting more and more
difficult to move his limbs.

Soon his armor had rusted so much that it completely seized up.
Milo was stuck and all alone.

A friendly (beetle) jester says that he can offer help in fixing the problem, but only if Milo takes his metal suit off. The idea frightens Milo as the armour has been protection in more ways than one. When the last of the rusty metal falls away, Milo realizes that his suit is so shattered that it could never be mended. Strangely he feels not fear but release.

Milo smiled as he looked up at the sky. The sun came out.
He felt its warm rays on his face and the gentle wind stirring
the blades of grass around him. Despite his armor being gone,
Milo felt he and the colony were safe. His time as a knight was over.

Milo, who, we now see, is actually a handsome red-and-black beetle, skips lightheartedly away though the flowers, ready for new adventures – to meet a dragon, perhaps?

Quebecois author Laforce’s gentle story takes us on the journey of someone small who thinks he is defending others from danger when, in reality, he is defending himself against the unknowns of a larger world. The intervention of a creature whose lifestyle Milo has admired proves to be the unleashing of a whole new way of looking at life.

The coloured pencil illustrations in light tones have taken inspiration from medieval manuscripts with their borders and botanical decoration. Milo is shown at the beginning with all six limbs heavily mailed and two suspicious eyes peering out of his visor. When the rain causes the armour to rust, the expression of those eyes turns to one of anxiety. And when Milo is finally freed from his metal constraints, the eyes express unbridled delight. All the details and the scale of the buildings, the plants and especially the merry beetle jesters with their baskets and tools and musical instruments are just right.

Individual young readers will take pleasure in the humour of the book, and parents and teachers looking for a story about finding out how to embrace one’s selfhood and open up to new possibilities will enjoy Milo, the Knight.