Blessing Stone by Barbara Wood

From the Publisher

Millions of years ago, a meteorite fell to earth and a beautiful blue stone shattered from it. One hundred thousand years ago, a girl named Tall One found the crystal on the African plain---and it formed her destiny, as well as the destiny of generations to come. From ancient Israel to imperial Rome, medieval England, fifteenth-century Germany, the eighteenth-century Caribbean, and the nineteenth-century American West, the destiny of the stone and the history of the world unfold. Each story is full of the betrayals and obsessions of the human heart, and the quests of the human spirit. In The Blessing Stone, Barbara Wood has both told the intimate details of her characters' lives and created a sense of the epic sweep of human history.

Jessica Swaim - KLIATT

A masterful storyteller takes on the history of the world in this epic novel that begins 3,000,000 years ago with the fall of a meteorite. Skip to 100,000 years ago, when a huntress called Tall One finds a piece of the meteorite on the African plain. Tall One's descendants carry the stone northward to the land of the glaciers. From there it travels to ancient Israel, imperial Rome, medieval Europe, the Caribbean, and the Old West. Each woman who possesses the beautiful blue crystal endows it with powers unique to her times and circumstances. The stone shapes not only individual destinies but those of future generations as it evolves from the heart of a fertility goddess to a symbol of adultery to a religious relic to a necklace known as the Star of Cathay to an object of divination, ultimately ending up in a most unlikely setting revealed on the last page. A wealth of fascinating historical detail is woven into the mix, but it is Wood's characters who bring each era vividly to life. Discussion questions are included at the back. KLIATT Codes: SA—Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2003, St. Martin's Griffin, 450p., Ages 15 to adult.

Product Details

• Reading Group Guide

Reading Group Guide

Question: What do you think of the time periods the author chose to write about in The Blessing Stone? Were there any you liked more than others? Were there any you would have liked to see? Which came the most alive for you?

Question: In Tall One's story, there is no actual dialogue. Did you notice this? Were the characters' motivations and intentions still clearly delineated?

Question: What aspects of the ancient Middle Eastern section do you think still have resonance today?

Question: Have your ideas about fate and destiny changed after reading this book? If so, how? If not, why?

Question: What do you think the author is trying to say about superstitions and the power we give objects?

Question: Did any historical fact or idea in The Blessing Stone surprise you? If so, how?

Question: Which character in The Blessing Stone did you find the most heroic? The most villainous?

Question: The author compresses time in the "interludes." How did the use of compressed time work for you in the story?

Question: How did the book make you think about the history of seemingly ordinary objects?