C.S. Lewis: Master Storyteller

Originally posted on Creative Madness Mama. 

 



The last several weeks most nights I have been reading aloud and taking turns with my Second Grader to read C.S Lewis, Master Storyteller from the Christian Heroes: Then & Now series by YWAM Publishing {aff} which we were blessed to receive for review as well as a CD Unit Study Guide Curriculum. The book is also available an audiobook and eBook versions and the study guide is available as a download as well. Ours is a physical paperback and CD. The book is very good quality with a glossy cover and is the size of an average trade paperback book with just over 190 pages. On the YWAM website you can see through ISSUU a sample of the book and some screen prints of a sample study guide.



My own childhood was filled with knowledge of the Narnia stories written by “Master Storyteller” C.S. Lewis through BBC dramatizations that had been recorded onto VHS tapes from a PBS special. It was not until after I was married that I actually purchased an omnibus of the series and started to read and get an idea about what all the fuss what about. Within a few years, the newer movie versions started to come to theatre, then add on my own children and we have started to read the series as read aloud storytime books. In my own time, I've read quite a few of Lewis' apologetical devotionals as well as fallen in love with the use of the C.S. Lewis Study Bible also. Thus, I was delighted to start reading Christian Heroes: Then & Now C.S. Lewis, Master Storyteller by Janet & Geoff Benge. I had seen YWAM books and biographies mentioned on various homeschool lists over the last few years in my searching lists, but this is my first experience with one, and I'm very happy with it and definitely plan to look into their books in the future with other characters we need to know from history.

From my own experience of words here and there I knew that Lewis was at one point in his life a staunch atheist, but I had not known until reading this with my children that he was quite a faithfilled Christian earlier in his life before he drifted away and then was influenced by a particular tutor. The prose of this autobiography is like a novel, but filled with facts and truth from youth forward and is bringing history alive for our whole family. Reading about the events in the all-boys school and then experiencing the depressions in his family surround him, and even the starting points of the first World War was powerful and educational. The writers of this book have done an incredible job. I am enjoying it, my advanced six year old is enjoying it and my four year old is enjoying the story even if not really holding on to it. She enjoys it as a story.



We have enjoyed reading C.S. Lewis, Master Storyteller as our bedtime story. [ETA as requested more detail from the blog tour anchor team.] As I've already mentioned, the biography itself was delightful. However, I'd like to also note that the study guide is great as well. It is filled with a plethora of information that could take this one small biography and lead toward a semester or more of study. It is a CD-Rom, which when entered into the computer provides a short trailer video blip for the series. Such as the Christian Heroes: Then & Now which features Christian examples of people in history that have stood up and provided models of a good way to live and grow the faith and fellowship in Christ. Within the CD-Rom there are PDF printables that include maps, as well as discussion points in the actual guide document. In our home, before we read C.S. Lewis Master Storyteller I read through the study guide and made choices of things to point out. Such as the Key Bible Verse (see image above) and then as we read the story and Jack's example exemplified the verse I pointed it out to my girls and we talked about it further as well as underlined the verse in AppleBlossom's personal Bible.

We used the study guide to expand the biography across the curriculum. Mainly it was a character and Bible story, but there was also imprints of geographical lessons as well as vocabulary and more. I appreciated the discussion that we were able to maintain through out our entire use of this program. What I found is that I would definitely like to continue to use YWAM products in our future homeschool especially the biographies. The study guide was good, but not absolutely fabulous as most of it was geared toward a group setting - but in that statement it would make a great resource for a Sunday School or Wednesday Bible study or some such. It is a great product.



 
This review was originally posted on Creative Madness Mama.