This summer I hosted a Henry and the Chalk Dragon book club at my local Christian bookstore. We had 12 kids aged 6 to 13 attend and we really did have a wonderful time together.
Because we hosted this at our Christian bookstore and because I think that the Christian themes are absolutely present in the story, I tried to highlight 2 pieces of scripture that can help us get some of the truth out of the Henry story: Psalm 139:14 and Romans 12:4-8. 
Using Jennifer Trafton’s guide as inspiration, I made an activity packet for each attendee as well as some other fun things. In each packet, I printed some of the activity pages from Trafton’s guide and I added the coloring sheets on her website as well.
To encourage the participants to embrace their God-given gifts, I made a Quest Book for each participant. Just a simple spiral notebook (green, of course) with gentle instructions.
I took Jennifer’s “You have to be brave to be an artist…” hand lettered quote on her website and printed it on sticker paper so that the kids could color it in on their notebook cover.
Here are my computer generated (no hand lettering beauty coming out of my pencils) cover labels/stickers:
One of my favorite aspects of Henry and the Chalk Dragon is how the day cannot be saved until Henry and his classmates embrace their unique gifts and bring them together in collaboration – just as we are called to do in Romans 12:4-8.
I love how it helps to reveal that the Body of Christ with many parts isn’t just something we talk about at Vacation Bible School, it is a command to love and value each other as much as it is an encouragement to know that we are not without purpose.
I haven’t been in the classroom in ten years and I had forgotten how much fun it is to work with young souls in this way. Henry and the Chalk Dragon is a beautiful story full of literary and spiritual goodness. It was the perfect way to lay a firm foundation for our book club culture.
Curriculum Guide from Jennifer Trafton at The Rabbit Room
Curriculum Guide in PDF from Jennifer Trafton at her website
Scripture and Henry Quote I printed and laminated for discussion in PDF
Quest Book Stickers in PDF
Quest Book Instructions in PDF
Discover more from Plumfield and Paideia
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Wow Sara! Thank you so much! I just started looking for supporting materials so that we can start this book next week (one daughter has read it twice, but the rest of us have not) and this is a treasure trove of resources!
Yay! I was so impressed with how much care Trafton put into the supporting materials! One of our local priests is an art professor and he said that her materials are the kind of thing that he use to use when he taught middle school students in Chicago. He was so impressed. I found that really validating of my own impression. HAVE FUN!!