· Title: The Adventures of King Arthur
· Author: Angela Wilkes
· Illustrator: Peter Dennis
· Publisher: Usborne Publishing, Ltd.
· Copyright: 1981
· ISBN #: 0-86020-551-7
· Genre: Juvenile Literature
· Library Location: The Canyon Area Library
· Summary:
In this book, there is a basic depiction of the traditional story of King Arthur and his knights of the round table. The book takes the reader through all the basic aspects of the story, such as Arthur pulling the sword from the stone and being crowned king. It depicts how he broke his original sword and then procured Excalibur from the lady of the lake and then how he fell in love with and married Guinevere. It also explains how the Knights of the Round Table starts by Guinevere’s father sending Arthur the round table and knights as a wedding present. There is a section however on Arthurs sister Morgan la Fay and her plots to kill Arthur, which sometimes is a lesser told area of the legends. The last few sections of the book are about Lancelot and Guinevere and how their love for each other tore apart the Knights of the Round Table and started multiple battles which ended with Arthur’s nephew Mordred using Arthur’s absence from Camelot to try to take over and ending in a final battle where Arthur and Mordred face off. Mordred is killed and Arthur is mortally wounded and asks one of his knights to return Excalibur to the lake before Arthur is placed in a barge with four ladies. In the end he is taken to the magic Vale of Avalon to be healed and never seen again.
· Personal Comments:
To me this book in of itself is more of a synopsis of the legend of King Arthur than an in depth story. The book does hit all of the high point of the story of King Arthur and his knights, but it does not seem to have some of the more specific details that other stories that I have read have. The previous book that I reviewed as more detailed, not just because it was trying to sort the fact from the fantasy, but also because the chapter on the legend of Arthur had quite a few details in it that this book did not. On the whole this book gives the reader the story of King Arthur, but it is toned down for a younger audience. It is a good book to give to a child just learning about the legend of King Arthur or even to someone who knows the legend but just need a quick refresher if they do not need or wish to know some of the little details.
· Suggested Use in Classroom:
Some of the uses for this book in class could be to use it as a refresher on the legend of King Arthur. If your classes discussion on Arthur is interrupted by a long break or if you just want to remind the students of the legend they have all grown up with before jumping into the section. It could also be good to start a lesson with for those students who might not already know the legends, especially because some of the written works on King Arthur, La Morte d’ Arthur, can be a bit difficult to understand. It could also be a fun book to do a compare and contrast project with. There are so many different versions of the King Arthur stories, that it could be a fun project to pick different books and compare their stories. This is an especially good book because it has most of the details, but it is still a quick read so that the students can compare more than just a couple of books.
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