Fleischman has a poetic, vivid style of writing. Indeed, sections of the novel can be read as if they were pure poetry. He penetrates characters with swift, sure strokes, highlighting their essential qualities—be it nobility, evil, pompousness, slyness, anguish, or pain.

Fleischman has a mythic style of writing that seems at times to place the story in a far-away legendary land.

Horn Book notes that Fleischman writes "as if Mark Twain had edited Nathaniel Hawthorne's books," and that is right on the mark. There is the humor and tall-tale quality of Twain and the otherworldly, unearthly quality of Hawthorne. That Fleischman makes this odd mixture work so successfully and smoothly is a tribute to his artistic skill.