Posts Tagged ‘mystery’

Links to Help Write a Mystery Story

Tuesday, December 11th, 2012

links-to-help-write-a-mystery-story

If your homeschooled student wants to write a mystery story, here are some links that will help in understanding how to solve mysteries:

If your kids would love to write a mystery story but don’t know where to start, I have a fun set of four video classes on How to Write a Mystery Story for homeschool students, leading them through every step of writing a mystery. I’m dressed up as Sherlock Holmes, and we do lots of hands-on activities as we write our weekly installment of the story. We will be looking at game boards as we write the setting and exciting action at the beginning of our story. We will do a set of cards describing each character, learn about clues and fingerprints, and discover how to write a surprise ending to the mystery story. Your students will have a 10-page story by the end of the month. Why not add some fun to your writing curriculum? Your kids will love it!

Mystery Novels About Creation

Thursday, December 2nd, 2010

mystery-novels-about-creationRecently I’ve had the pleasure of reading three books in the Truth Seekers Mystery Series. I won the books as a door prize for the Ultimate Homeschool Expo Fall, which is a holiday edition of the Ultimate Homeschool Expo. The door prize was actually very appropriate for our homeschooling this year, since we not only studied mystery stories, but we also studied the creation vs. evolution debate. My two older sons watched the DVD series by the Institute for Creation Research, and we talked about each 30-minute DVD, discussing the information presented. My oldest son Bryan is visibly offended every time he sees evolution presented as fact in videos and books. I told him that evolution is taught in the public school system as fact, and that most people don’t know both sides of the debate.

The Truth Seekers books, by Christina and Felice Gerwitz, are actually fiction books that contain lots of information about creation science, presented in a fun way as the characters are engaged in a mystery. Many chapters end with a cliff hanger – one chapter literally had a character holding on to the side of a cliff with no safety rope, since the rope had been cut. Each of the three books I read centered their mystery around an archaeological dig, bringing to light surprising facts about creation science. Evolutionists are treated with dignity, not portrayed as idiots. My husband often reminds me that many intelligent people believe in evolution.

When the books arrived at my door, I accidentally started reading the second book first. The heart-stopping suspense kept me reading, since someone fell out of an airplane without a parachute. Further on in the story, there was a mansion with trap doors and secret passageways. Suspicious people weren’t what they seemed. So much action permeated the book that it was truly a pleasure to read. I handed the books to my 9-year-old son, who devoured them quite quickly and wanted to talk to me about different scenes. For example, the first book started with a boat chase with a helicopter hovering over the boat, letting FBI agents on board. Bullets were flying, and the main characters tried to stay down to avoid getting hit.

Christian young people really ought to have a strong foundation of creation science to be able to defend their faith in the real world. What better way to do that than to read some suspense-filled mystery novels?