Journey back in time and across the ocean to England shortly after the turn of the century. This is where The White Knights by W. E. Cule takes place. It was written in 1919 just after World War I had ended. Many men had fought and died in this war, and the young boys were growing up in a war-torn country with many of their fathers and role models gone. Enter a need which is filled by this character training book by W. E. Cule.

I’m sure I never would have found a copy of this great piece of character training for young boys had it not been for Mark Hamby and Lamplighter Publishing. Their mission is to bring back these great pieces of literature and reprint them through a Biblical viewpoint adding in Scripture and footnotes.

This particular piece is geared toward ages nine through fourteen—that age where young boys are on the cusp of manhood. I have three such boys in my house. They are ages ten, nine, and eight. Little stair steps they are. Raising boys is a new adventure to me as our oldest three are girls. I had several books on-hand about being a princess or a handmaiden and how we are to strive to glorify God in the female role. But boys? How do you talk to boys about striving to do all for the glory of God? What do you use for their role? They don’t really like or relate to princesses.

Enter The White Knights. Knights, kings, and castles are sure to capture the imagination of boys young and old. This book follows the motto,“To ride abroad redressing human wrongs!” Boys learn to fight the evil of the world with good and not more evil. They are encouraged to pay more attention to what is going on around them and to help out anyone they see who might need a helping hand. No matter what it might cost them.

This book was read by my oldest boy who is ten. He read it independently, and then I read it to the whole family as a read aloud. I like using character-training books as read-alouds so we can all discuss them and talk about how to implement the lessons in our daily lives. Especially how we can implement them in our lives involving our siblings. With a large family and homeschooling, most of their daily interaction is with each other, and I feel they often forget that brothers and sisters are people in need as well. It’s important to remind them to treat their siblings like they would their friends.

While this book is geared towards boys, I feel that girls do get some life lessons out of it as well. Just as boys may glean wisdom from a book on princesses, so may girls glean something from a book on knight behaviors. We all should be putting others and their needs above our own like the boys are taught in this book. My oldest daughter took the book to read after we used it for our read-aloud time, and she did enjoy the story as well. She recommends this as well but did want to add that she’d prefer to find some geared toward ladies.

The White Knights is 194 pages long and currently retails for $20 on the Lamplighter Publishing website. I’d like to mention that another book by this same author, W. E. Cule, is available in the Lamplighter Collection. I do not own this book, but it is on my wishlist, so make sure you also peek at the title Sir Knight of the Splendid Way. I believe it is geared more toward high school boys/men.

If you follow the Charlotte Mason approach to homeschooling, or if you simply like to have good literature available for your children, you’re going to want to pay close attention to this company. Lamplighter Publishing has won our hearts with their approach to literature and the truly great works of literature that they are managing to find and bring back into circulation. The White Knights gets our seal of approval and recommendation as a great book for the whole family. We will continue to seek out and read this great collection of classics.

-Product review by Erin Slocum, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, July 2017