Bookworm Banter: The Bronze Bow

After a couple of long months, I have actually finished a book! Oh, there have been others I guess, but one was a parenting book (very good by the way, but I can't write about it since my children read my blog and I don't want them to know all of my secrets), and one housekeeping book. I attempted to listen to Bee Season, which became too explicit in its realism, and Water For Elephants, which made me feel as though I had walked into a (misnomeric) "gentleman's club." These past couple of months of limited reading have reinforced my belief that the escapism of reading fiction is essential to my psychological well-being. So please don't judge me if I seem to always have my head stuck in a book; it's my form of Prozac. And just like Prozac, reading has its negative side effects--but that could be a long blog topic in itself that I'm sure no one would be interested in.

And sooo . . . the book I have finished is The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare, which is a children's book--a pretty safe bet after my X-rated choices. It was the Newberry Award winner in 1962, and is written by the author of The Witch of Blackbird Pond, which also won the Newberry. I have learned that I'm not very good at summarizing a book--I envy those who write for the book jacket--so I have just copied Amazon's description:

"In this Newberry Medal-winning novel, Daniel bar Jamin is fired by only one passion: to avenge his father's death by crucifixion by driving the Roman legions from his land of Israel. He joins an outlaw band and leads a dangerous life of spying, plotting, and impatiently waiting to seek revenge. Headstrong Daniel is devoid of tenderness and forgiveness, heading down a destructive path toward disaster until he hears the lessons taught by Jesus of Nazareth. "

Reading about Daniel's experiences helped me see what life was like at that time for the Jews under the dominion of the Romans, and it is interesting to see how he tries to understand Jesus' message of forgiveness as he feels so much anger for his enemies. I wouldn't describe it as a page-turner, but not all good books are. I would guess that had this book been written recently it would have no chance of winning an award, with all of its Christian themes. As far as children reading it, I'm not sure if the Harry Potter generation could stay focused. Maybe a good family read-aloud book? I give it 3 out of 5 stars.

Over the last several years I have been trying to read the Newberry Award books. I have read 31 out of about 85, so I still have a long way to go! Some of my favorites are: The View From Saturday (Konigsburg), Walk Two Moons (Creech), The Giver (Lowry), From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (Konigsburg), A Wrinkle in Time (L'Engle), The Witch of Blackbird Pond (Speare), and Call It Courage (Sperry). I think these are all books that can be enjoyed regardless of age. But maybe I'm not a good judge, since I can be a bit childlike/ish.