We were introduced to "The Secret of the Hidden Scrolls" books by WorthyKids, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, last year, and boy am I glad that we were. Our 4th grader and I loved reading Book 1: The Beginning and Book 2: Race to the Ark together. So when we heard that there were now Book 3: The Great Escape and Book 4: Journey to Jericho, we jumped at the chance to read them as well. They were just as great as the first two!
I want to give you just a little background on these great books. Peter and his older sister, Mary, are staying with their Uncle Solomon while their parents are away. Uncle Solomon has a library with many ancient discoveries in it. There is a bunch of scrolls with seals on them that send them away to have adventures from the Bible. They have to solve the scroll within a certain time limit in order to go home. If they don't solve it in time, they will be stuck there forever. To find out more about the first two books, go read my first review HERE.
Before I get into telling you about books 3 & 4, I just wanted to tell you about how excited our 4th grader was to get start reading these books. When I told him that it was time to read, he jumped up and down, ran to get his glasses, and started reading. No fuss. No complaining. No acting like he can't find his glasses just to waste time. He said, "I love these books! I can't wait to see what happens in these!" That makes this mom very happy.
"Book 3: The Great Escape" is about Moses and how the Israelites escape from Egypt. I have to be honest and tell you that as he was reading this book, he didn't know that was what it was about. Once I read the name, Moses, his face lit up and he was even more excited! This book really brought the story, that he had already known, to life for him.
I read the first few chapters to him just to get him started. We were just going to read a chapter or two, but he wanted me to just keep going. We ended up reading the first 5 chapters in one sitting. The chapters aren't too long so it wasn't too bad.
In "The Great Escape", Peter and Mary meet a girl named Shephara. Little do they know that she is a princess, the daughter of the Pharaoh of Egypt. Yikes! She takes them to her palace where they end up meeting her dad, the Pharaoh. He has to leave quickly as he has visitors, Moses and Aaron. That was cool how Peter and Mary got to see Moses' staff turn into a snake and eat the magician's staffs that also had turned into snakes. I also liked that Peter, Mary, and Princess Shephara were actually swimming in the Nile River as Aaron was about to turn it into blood. Gross! Peter and Mary meet the Great Magician, who ends up being Satan. They find out who he really is when he tries to make a deal with them so that he could get their scroll. I love when the angel Michael comes and helps them in their time of need. After the last plague, the Israelites are freed. Poor Princess Shephara was heartbroken when she told Peter and Mary that her brother had died because of the plague and, of course, her father's stubborness. This book was really great as it puts the plagues and the miracles of God into a first person-type of view. It really felt like we were there experiencing all of it with Peter and Mary. At the end of the book, it mentions the Promised Land.
That leads us to Book 4: Journey to Jericho. Peter and Mary find the Israelite camp, even though they didn't know it at first. They went inside the tabernacle and looked around. They saw a huge candlestick and a golden table with bread. Joshua looked underneath the table where they were hiding and found them. Then Peter and Mary knew who they had found. Mary showed them that they believed in God by writing the name YHWH in the sand. This was the "secret" name of God. Joshua told them about Jericho. He said that God promised the Israelites the land, but Jericho was there. Later on, Mary and Peter saw two men sneakily going into Jericho and they thought that the men were spies. Come to find out, they were Caleb and Phineas, the Israelite spies. Rahab hid them and then helped them all to escape. While the Israelites were walking around the walls of Jericho, Mary and Peter were on the wall. They were trying to escape while the walls were crumbling around them.
He really liked this book and thought that it was very exciting! He can't wait for more books!
We really enjoy The Secret of the Hidden Scrolls books by WorthyKids, an imprint of Hachette Book Group. They bring Bible stories to life in a historical fiction kind of way. Peter and Mary are totally relatable to my 4th grader and he just loves to read these! We can't wait to find out what stories they come out with next!
We loved these books! Go and see what the other reviewers thought about them by clicking the picture below!
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