The Windeby Puzzle by Lois Lowry
Lowry blends equal parts non-fiction with fiction in this dual narrative about a head-strong teen girl and a disabled teen boy during the Iron Age. Inspired by the discovery of the 2000-year-old Windeby bog body.
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LJR’s Thoughts for The Windeby Puzzle
Having only watched The Giver and recently read Number the Stars, I was quite surprised by The Windeby Puzzle. Yes, the formatting is different with its blend of history and fiction. Lowry’s findings and methods for storytelling alternate by two fictional stories, each ending to reveal what she suspects as the potential identity of the bog body. Her writing is engaging and descriptions are vivid. An older teen interested in history and mystery will especially enjoy it. I do not recommend Amazon’s reading age of 10+. As you’ll see below, too many mature concepts for younger children. Definitely wait until they are 14+ and even then, having conversations will be a good idea.
Overall Rating: 2.5 out of 5
Christian Morals/Values: 2 out of 5
Story: 3 out of 5
Read-Aloud Value: 1 out of 5
Discussion Value: 4 out of 5
Considerations for The Windeby Puzzle
In our usual LJR fashion, we try to find anything that Christian families may want to know about ahead of time to address, skip, or dig deeper into. Take a look at what we found below. Our take on Discipleship Opportunities is at the bottom of the review.
- Positive Behavior: Estrild is kind to Varick despite his disability (he’s looked down upon in the village.
- Negative Behavior: character is motivated to be changed from a “useless girl into a warrior” and has a thirst for boys’ strength and power; hiding and sneaking without parents permission or knowledge
- Language: p!ss, imbecile, d@mned fool; brat
- Violence/Intense Scenes: Discussion of bog bodies and their violent deaths and slightly more mild discussions of some horrific injuries; death of parents and child abandoned due to deaths in battle; child death; black and white pictures of a skull and bog body
- Religion/Spirituality: pagan gods and Christianity not reaching N. Europe yet. Human sacrifices, incantations.
- Racism/Discrimination: “life should hold more for a woman”;
- Romance/Sexuality: the body of a young girl about 13 is found with no clothes, suggestion of a girl possibly having an affair with a married man and beaten for it.
- Substance Usage: men act up during a drunken state
Discipleship Opportunities
- Discuss with your teens the problem of worshiping pagan gods and child sacrifice to those gods. Leviticus 20:2-5 describes God’s prohibition of child sacrifice and multiple stories of kings who sacrificed their children can be seen as examples of how this causes issues. Check out this article from Got Questions .org for more detail.
- Honoring your father and mother would lead to a great discussion with your teens, especially in light of characters sneaking around. Exodus 20:12, Deuteronomy 5:16, Ephesians 6:1-24. Focus on the Family has a great article specifically addressed toward teens for them to read.
- Often throughout the Bible we see God taking care of women and their value being upheld where other groups were not. Start with the very basic in Genesis 1:27, 31; Genesis 2:18-24
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