Review: The Sword in the Tree by Clyde Bulla

genre: Children's Literature

This book makes me want to cheer. My 7.5 year old has been ready to move into chapter books with a thicker plot, but thicker plot usually means chapters that are a bit too long. Enter this perfect book. There's knights and castle intrigue, a mute wise man and King Aurthur himself. It's exciting and engaging but on just the right level for him. Every chapter has an illustration and the vocabulary was totally accessible for him -except for the names. He had to ask a couple times about that, but there you go. I don't really feel like I can complain about that.

Anyway, I tried to get him to read a chapter or two a day but some days he read three or even four. The choices and personalities of the characters led to some interesting moral discussions about loyalty and hospitality. I purchased this study guide to help me dig deeper and while some parts were a bit too old for him, a lot of it was just right. I made him write some and dictate some and I think it rounded out the experience a lot.

In the end, this was a great starter chapter book for my boy and the story was interesting enough to keep me interested as well. With all the knights and swords you could hope for, I highly recommend it for children who are on the verge of breezing through Magic Tree House type books.