Christian Heroes: Then & Now - Review

We love reading in our house! Often times, my children read for fun but there are times they need to read books for school. Sometimes those type of books they don't find interesting. We are thankful though for YWAM Publishing and the great variety of biographies that they publish. We recently had the chance to read and review Christian Heroes - C.S. Lewis. This book is part of the Christian Heroes: Then & Now series.

They offer both the Christian Heroes:Then & Now series as well as a Heroes of History series. Each of these biographies also has an accompanying Study Guide. The study guide is a digital PDF download while the book is a physical product.

C.S.Lewis Master Storyteller has 17 chapters and is 191 pages long. The book starts off with talking about a young C.S.Lewis, otherwise known as Jack. It then goes on to talking in chronological order about his family and life in Ireland as a child and his time at Oxford University. A neat fact we also learned about was his time serving in World War 1 and how he captured German soldiers simply because he started talking in French as the French were known then to kill their captives (he was obviously Irish). They begged him for mercy. The book continues talking about his later life and how he came to write the Screwtape Letters and eventually wrote The Chronicles of Narnia. The biography ends with C.S. Lewis' death which happened the same day John F. Kennedy was assassinated. 

One thing my son thought that was neat C.S. Lewis used a lot of his own life experiences as the basis for many of his books.

The Study Guide provides a lot of variety of activities that accompany the book and helps you dig deeper into it. Some of the activities that are included are:

• maps
• timeline
• discussion questions divided by chapters (with the answers in the back)
• essay questions
• writing prompts
• suggested books and resources
• Bible verses to memorize

There is also a 13 week suggested schedule for the student to follow that gives both reading assignments as well as activity suggestions. The full body study guide titled Unit Study 1 is 82 pages long. 

My son was able to independently do the work. I gave him the book to read and told him what chapters to read when. I also printed off all the chapter questions for him to put in a 3 ring binder. From there, he would answer the questions in a notebook as he made his way through the book.

We didn't do too many of the extra activities as my son has already read a lot of C.S. Lewis's books and even watched the movie "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" (which was one of the activities suggested). But that's the great thing about this Study Guide, you can do as little or as many of the added activities. My son still has a little bit to finish up reading so I most likely will have him end the book by writing one of the creative writing ideas.

There are SO many biographies in the Christians Heroes:Then & Now series that your child or student would definitely find interesting to learn about!