Amon's Adventure: A Family Story for Easter

We loved reading this book as a family!

Our family loves these books! My boys beg for another chapter every night!

Beautifully written. Read as a family and we all really enjoyed the story.

This is a devotion for families to read in preparation to celebrate Easter. I wanted to make that clear because I've seen reviews of Christian books where non-Christians complain that they were misled.I read this aloud to two boys who were 12 and 10. They enjoyed the story. At first, I found it a bit difficult (tedious) to read. In fact, I tried it once before putting it away. I took it out a year later and decided to stick it out. I think that's because the first two or three chapters are long and slow in comparison to the rest of the book. The young male protagonist is initially upset that he will have a female house guest. I didn't find him appealing because he seemed to make such a big deal of it.However, the story picks up after that and continues to move along at a nice clip. The boys enjoyed the story and always wanted to read additional chapters. (As a side note: they could have read it themselves but we like to enjoy some books together.) At first I had wondered if we (I) would make it through before Easter, since we began the book late. We also skipped some days when we were busy. We still made it through by combining some chapters every time we read.The conflict here is pretty high stakes, which is engaging. There is essentially a mystery to solve. It is still fun for an adult or older reader who knows their Bible.One interesting aspect is the detail given about the temple, especially in relation to the Fortress of Antonia.Some real people are mixed in with the story but fictional elements are added to their lives. For example, an apostle is credited as having a daughter, but that is never mentioned in Scripture. Very young children may find that confusing.From what I recall, characterization is good. The protagonist is the most well developed. His friends also have distinct and consistent personalities. The mother and brothers are shuttled to the side. For example, one of the boys is described as having a lying problem. That goes nowhere.The editing could have been better. I told the boys that I didn't want them to read the book themselves because there are so many misplaced commas. There may have been other problems, but I don't remember them now.I also don't know that we got a whole lot out of the devotional verse(s) and message at the end of each chapter. I thought some didn't quite fit with the chapter we had read.Despite its flaws, we really enjoyed the story. I think many Christian families with enjoy. It made the boys want to read all the others in the series. I wish there were more Easter stories like this one.

As a family we are LOVING this book! We have read 2 of the Advent books by the same author so we are not surprised that this is also intriguing, well-written, and thought-provoking. I did make the mistake of starting it at the beginning of Lent only to realize there are only 28 chapters (not 40), so then we took a break to line up the last week with Holy Week, but that has not reduced our interest at all. Kids ages 3-10 here are loving it, and the adults as well! Definitely a must-read. Also be sure to look for the author's Advent books, and the sequels to this book that are forthcoming, per the author's website!!!

Oh Amon. Well the first comment is that the chapters are short enough. Until the last two. So if you’re planning this out to end on Easter, I highly recommend 2 days for each of the last 2 chapters. It would work anyways since the first half of Easter is all about Amon and doesn’t get to Jesus until the second half. You would have Good Friday a day early but most of that chapter is only about Amon anyways. He talks about the cross the next day.This and another Easter book “Fountain of Life” were very similar. Teenage boys in the time of Christ with the reader learning a lot about scripture, festivals, customs, etc. In this one, Amon does not believe Jesus is the messiah with pretty good justification. So you get an idea of how some people did get it wrong. His friend does believe Jesus is the messiah so you get her side as well.We will read it again next Easter. But we will build extra days in for the final chapters. Our morning reading went from 15 minutes to almost 45 minutes with those two chapters.

This was a very well written and thought out book. We read this as described before Easter. Really helped our minds and hearts get into the reason for Easter! The book follows the bible mostly. Just be careful as when you mix fiction stories with the bible you need to be able to let your kids know what is real and what is part of the "story". I had my kids asking a lot of questions about I didn't know that "happened", which was good because it sparked a lot of conversations and also helped me to dig into the "word" and clarify! Overall great book and will be buying the others in the series.

We have 5 boys ages 15,13,12,10 and 5. They all loved this book! Often they would ask to read 2 passages instead of 1 because they were so interested in the story! Love the scripture verses at the end of each passage that help tie it all together. We read Jothams Journey during Christmas and the kids enjoyed that some of the characters carried over to this story. There are 25 short chapters. Was a bit more difficult for us to keep on top of. With Jothams Journey, the story of advent, you read a passage each day. We started this book too early and only needed to read a chapter ever few days so it was wasy to get behind. Next time we read this I will make sure we map it out a littlw better.

Got as an Easter gift instead of an egg. I was very pleased with it

Great book, my niece loved it

As always Arnold Ytreeide story telling abilities are exceptional! We would recommend that you first read Jotham's Journey, Tabitha's Travels and Bartholomew's Passage before beginning this one as this story builds on the previous adventures. It is significantly longer than the other stories. Advent is 4 weeks, while he gives approximately 7 weeks to read through this story. Our crew enjoyed getting to read it so far in advance to Easter. The author does give additional suggestions about how to read it if you are not inclined to read that far in advance. It is engaging and exciting. Our children are enjoying it greatly, and range in ages from 8-13. Parents and grandparents continue to look forward to family reading times!

Delightful story for the whole family to read together over Lent. Give yourselves ample time to go through it as the daily stories get longer as you get closer to Easter.

Great to read as a family as a daily lead up to Easter. Interesting for the whole family.