Precious Living Stones: Book Club: The Bronze Bow

The high light of our week was most certainly book club! I wanted to share about it. The kids and I are having a fantastic time with it! :)

The Bronze Bow

We have read a lot of wonderful books so far for our book club but this one, by far, was my favorite and some of the kids felt the same way. :)

The Bronze Bow is historical fiction at its best! No wonder it has high reviews and has won the Newbery Medal. This author has successfully woven together a story that touches the heart of any reader; young and old. The Bronze Bow is set in Israel in the time of Jesus, when the Romans occupied the land but allowed the Jews freedom to practice their religion. It is about the plight of young man, Daniel, who is bound and determined to avenge his father and Uncle's death by the hands of the Romans. Long have they awaited the promise of the Messiah, the one who would rescue them from Roman Rule. Daniel has put his faith in a man named, Rosh, who lives on the mountain promising to lead a revolt against the Romans. Daniel is so consumed with revenge that he is willing to follow Rosh wherever he goes, even if it means stealing from his kinsmen to do so. The book has some incredible characters, including friends he meets along the way and of course he watched Jesus' ministry unfold and must make a choice to embrace forgiveness or to live and die by the sword.

Incredible book! I cried like a baby the last chapter. We laughed a lot because I couldn't keep it together in some parts to read. lol

Book Club

Book Club was amazing today. The kids were so eager to share and participate. I always open with a mini geography lesson and time period chat. I use the globe and atlas maps (Usborne World Atlas & Scholastic Canada World Atlas) to show them where in the world this story took place. I passed the globe around showing them where we live, which ocean is between us and Israel and where the country is). We spent some time talking about political maps verses relief maps. After we are done setting the stage of where, we talk about when in history the events occurred. After I feel like we have set the stage for this we move on to talking about the characters and plot. We also read a little bit from the book Window on the World about the people and history of Israel.

We talked about who were their favorite and least favorite characters and why, what parts of the book impacted them the most, what the theme of the book was, and any lessons or morals the book holds for us to take into our own lives. I am truly blown away by their observations and the depth of their thinking with some of their comments. We get the occasional sillies but for the most part the kids dig deep and are ready to share with each other. It shows me that they are developing keen critical thinking skills.

Once we are finished up with our chat (takes anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour), we do a pre-arranged activity. I had been wanting to do some map work with them with the last book but it didn't work out so I seized the opportunity to do it with this read a loud. I got the idea from a web site listing activities to do for The Bronze Bow and added some of my own ideas in there. We drew and painted a relief map of Israel! I showed them a relief map of Israel, explaining some geography and how to read a relief map, with valley's, mountains, fertile ground and the like. The kids had art canvas' and acrylic paints in green, blue, brown and yellow to work with to create their own maps. They free hand drew a copy of a map I handed out to each of them along with their paints and canvas'. I was very pleased with the response from this activity. The kids took their time and did some amazing work. So proud of all of them for working hard on their maps! I find it interesting what the kids draw and paint and how they use their artistic skills in various ways.

We finished off book club with some traditional Jewish honey cake (see recipe: here) and black olives that would likely have been used over in that country. I made the cake Gluten free as we have issues with wheat/gluten in our home. It was very good and the kids enjoyed it, asking for another piece. :)

It was a great afternoon. Yet another good club! This month's pick is The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis. I will be posting about this book and book club next month! :)

Here are the pics: