KING ARTHUR AND HIS KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE

KING ARTHUR AND HIS KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE by Roger Lancelyn Green

I recently took a group of 5th-8th graders through King Arthur. I have such an appreciation for Arthur. It is not light reading. It allowed me to step into some pretty deep conversations with the kids that do not typically arise in lit discussion.

Right from the start we jumped in and talked about Arthur pulling the sword from the anvil. It gives us such a perfect life picture. Only Arthur could do it. It was created for him - waiting for him to put his hands on and draw out. Each one of us has a sword in the anvil in our own life that we have been specifically created for. No one else can pull it, and we can't pull someone else's sword no matter how much we might want to.

We dug in deep on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The Green Knight has been sent to test the best Knight of the Round Table, because the honorable reputation of the knights is getting around. We talked about the truth behind that. Our reputation in life is what we're known for, and if we have a good one, people will test us and try to make us fall.

The last section of the book deals with the internal fall of Camelot. We looked at Scripture, talked about the sanctity of marriage, and the destruction of an affair. Often an affair will lead to divorce which always has a ripple effect in life. It's never just the husband and wife who are affected by it. Oftentimes, it's an explosion that causes destruction all over the place.

I'm truly grateful for literature like King Arthur. Ultimately, the truths come from the scriptures, but just maybe, someday, when one of these kids encounters one of these situations, they'll think back to our discussions and count the cost of some of life's choices thanks to the lessons learned in King Arthur's tales.

HEADS UP- There is magic in some of the stories. There is the start of the affair of Launcelot and Guinevere. There is violence in the stories such as heads being chopped off but without gory details.