Um, yeah.

Hi.

No, I didn’t fall off the face of the earth, or go to the ER, or forget to tell you I was going on vacation.  We’ve just been busy, and I’m just lazy–that’s all.

I decided skipping the book review two weeks in a row for no good reason was unacceptable, so here we are.

I’m waiting on the library to get me a copy of To Kill A Mockingbird again so I can have quotes in my review, so I thought now was as good a week as any to write that review of The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare, I said I needed to.

This is the first of Miss Speare’s books I read, and I really like it!  I remember thinking it the most dismal book on the planet when my Mom read it to us the first time, but we’ve since become friends.  I read it again, and liked it much better, being a bit older.

That said, I would recommend it for older kids, but more because I think they’ll get more out of it, than because there’s mature content.  There is some violence, but none of it is very graphic.

This book is about a boy living in New Testament times.  Jesus is a character in the book, and I think Miss Speare did an excellent job depicting him.

Daniel’s goal in life is to drive the oppressing Romans from his homeland, and following the rough outlaw Rosh seems to be the only way.  But that means leaving his grandmother and sister to fend for themselves.  And how will it affect his new friend Joel–and Joel’s twin sister, Malthace?

He would get rid of this flaw in himself!  Yet, like a treacherous bubble that fled under the hammer and formed again, a doubt returned.  Was there a flaw too in Rosh’s argument?  He could not put a finger on it, but he felt it just the same.  He wished he could talk to Joel about it.  Could Joel find the answer in those scriptures of his? . . . Suddenly, words were echoing in his mind.  “For each one of you is precious in His sight.”  Not scripture, but the words of the carpenter.  That was what had confused him.  Rosh looked at a man and saw a thing to be used, like a tool or a weapon.  Jesus looked and saw a child of God. (111)