Generations of Virtue is a Christian company dedicated to helping parents train their children in purity of heart, mind, and body. They usually have a beautiful booth each year at my local home school convention and I’ve purchased many resources when designing my own Life Relationships course for my high school students. Being familiar with this company, I was happy to have the opportunity to review their Beautifully Made books for girls and their Teknon novel for boys (Beautifully Made review is HERE).
Teknon and the Champion Warriors by Brent Sapp is a novel for young men, designed to teach character qualities in a fictional story. This is a science fiction story, described as a “son’s quest for courageous manhood”. It covers temptation, s*xual purity, friendships, honor, fear, respect, apathy, etc. Teknon is a young man on a journey with his father and a group of mentors. They are headed out to defeat Magos and retrieve the Logos, so that they may defend their city of Basileia and revive an ancient fighting unit known as the Champion Warriors. The writing is a little clunky and I found it somewhat difficult to get into, but ended up enjoying the story. Each chapter covers a different trait, and the writing is at times heavy handed in making that point, but all in all it seems an enjoyable starting point for great discussions with your sons. There are father’s and son’s study guides available and I wish I had been able to take a look at those as well. I can only assume that the workbook goes along with the novel and digs deeper into the topic of the chapter. I would think this would be best read a chapter at a time, either aloud together or separately before coming together for discussion. It could be read as a stand alone story, my boys are reading it as such, but I can see it being even more enjoyable as a dad and son time.
Many boys enjoy science fiction (Girls too! I just have to pipe in here and add that girls may also enjoy this story, even though it is written specifically for boys.), so this should be much more appealing than a simple character study. The adventure story of a young man sets the stage for learning many lessons along the way. The illustrations are done by Sergio Cariello, who has drawn Batman and Superman for DC Comics, and are well done. My thought as I read was that I may have preferred this as a graphic novel, but then some of the story may have been lost so I understand the decision to go with a novel. Perhaps a graphic novel as an option for reluctant readers? Just a thought.
This is recommended for ages 11-16, with a caution that it covers mature topics. I would think it best suited to ages 11-14. I didn’t find anything I wouldn’t be comfortable with my eleven year old reading, but you may want to pre-read to determine your comfort level.
You can order the novel for $13.99, the guides for $14.99 and $15.99, or the whole set for $42.99. This may not be a book I would recommend as great literature but it's a fun story that teaches your sons values along the way. If read together with dad, this could be a memory making training tool whose benefits far outweigh a simple science fiction story.
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