Saturday, March 7, 2009

book review - concord cunningham: the Scripture sleuth

i enjoyed this book. concord cunningham: the Scripture sleuth, while written on a 3rd or 4th grade level, is extremely engaging and written in a playful style.
the protagonist of the story is a boy named concord cunningham, who's probably like 9 or 10 years old. he knows a lot about the Bible - so much that he can solve mysteries by looking up passages in his concordance. he says he's "never met a mystery the Bible couldn't solve" - anything from theft to chickenpox, the Bible can handle it.
the book's format is interesting. each of the 12 short chapters are written like separate stories - all about the same concord, but about different mysteries he and his Bible must solve. at the end of each chapter, concord proudly unveils the Bible verse that explains his current mystery. then, the book urges you to look up the verse in your Bible, make a deduction on how the verse explains the mystery, and then read the solution in the section found at the back of the book.
while overall i recommend this book as a quick read to any child my age or younger, i do have one small problem with it - concord, the hero, is a perfectly perfect little boy; with his impeccable manners and completely sinless nature, i found him to be more than a tad unrealistic. i suppose there's a slight danger of some insecure young child reading it and beating themselves up for not being like concord (or more probable, laughing their head off and throwing the book away).
still, i enjoyed the book and i'd give it a 4/5.

1 comment:

Missy said...

Hey that looks like a good book for a 3rd grade boy in my house! And now that you've reviewed it, I am sure he will like it :)