A new book delivered to my mailbox always equals happy mail for me. Over the summer, I was delighted to receive a soft cover copy of the newly published Britfield & The Lost Crown by C.R. Stewart for review with homeschoolreviewcrew. This newly published adventure novel is available as a physical hard or soft cover book or as an e-book. Despite, or perhaps, because of years of homeschooling our children which involved reading with and/or to them regularly, my own reading for pleasure was often put on the back burner and has become less and less of an activity for me over the years. Due to the many changes in our lives this summer, Britfield & The Lost Crown was in my hands and there were no homeschool students nearby to read it with or to. This review became an opportunity to begin a return to my own personal reading for pleasure. It created the need to schedule it in.
Honestly, for me, it was a slow start. The early pages of the adventure novel had me a bit confused as to the setting in time of the story. Initially, I couldn't quite let go of trying to figure that out. Set in England, the place was clear, but perhaps, it was my lack of familiarity of England's history that added to my own confusion. Once I put that aside to just read and enjoy the story the pace picked up. As the two main characters, two precocious orphans, embarked on their adventure I was swept away into the excitement and mystery. Then with the author's vivid descriptions, the book began to read like a movie. I wasn't surprised at all to learn in my follow up research that the author, C.R. Stewart, is also a screen writer.
C.R. Stewart presents plenty of references for any reader to grab a bit of understanding of English history and geography. By including detailed descriptions of the places the young adventurers experience, he introduces landmarks of significance and interest. He also manages to include some art history references as the orphans encounter the work of famous European artists.This story provides excellent opportunities to jump into further study of history, geography or art history. Finding images of paintings by any of the seven masters mentioned in the story would further add to the visual richness of this adventure. Studying maps of locations described would develop geography literacy. The extensive eight week study guide at britfieldinstitute.org available for free encourages further learning. The guide includes a range of follow up activities from simple word game activities and reading comprehension questions to prompts for more in depth study. The vocabulary questions included encourage students to determine and understand word definitions based on context. A shared reading of Britfield & The Lost Crown with the use of the free study guide could easily turn the adventure story into a complete unit study covering several subjects.
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| Downloadable images available from Britfield.org |
I'm looking forward to reading the reviews of Britfield & The Lost Crown by other Review Crew reviewers. You can find them with me by clicking the image below.
