Knights of the Kitchen Table

Knights of the Kitchen Table by Jon Scieszka (Puffin Books, 1998) is a children’s fantasy novel that follows three friends on their journey through the time of King Arthur. Knights of the Kitchen Table has been praised for its ability to reach reluctant readers through its accessible, humorous storytelling. Discovery Kids aired an animated television adaptation of the book produced by WGBH Boston and Soup2Nuts.

An American author, Scieszka has penned several books for young readers and is best known for his humorous picture books, including The True Story of the Three Little Pigs! (1989) and The Stinky Cheese Man (1992). He received bachelor’s degrees in English and pre-med from Albion College and an MFA in fiction writing from Columbia University, after which he taught English and wrote for several magazines. Scieszka is the founder of guysread.com, a program dedicated to making boys lifelong readers, and he supports guyslisten.com, a similar site for audiobooks. He was named the first National Ambassador for Young People's Literature in 2008-2009 by the Library of Congress. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife.

This guide follows the 2004 Puffin Books eBook edition of Knights of the Kitchen Table.

Plot Summary

Knights of the Kitchen Table follows friends Joe, Sam, and Fred as they travel back in time. For his birthday, Joe receives a mysterious book from his Uncle Joe, a traveling magician. This book is titled simply “The Book,” and when Joe and his friends open it, they are transported to medieval England during King Arthur’s time.

Immediately, the boys face danger as a knight garbed in black bears down on them. Using their wits and quick thinking, the boys defeat the knight by tiring him out. Their efforts impress King Arthur and his knights, who beg Joe, Sam, and Fred to help them vanquish a dragon and a giant. After bestowing knightly names upon themselves, the boys agree.

At King Arthur’s castle, the boys amaze everyone except Merlin, Arthur’s enchanter. Merlin asks the boys to prove they can work magic, so Joe performs a card trick he learned from his uncle. Everyone is won over, except for Merlin, who is prevented from further testing the boys by the arrival of the giant.

The boys trick the giant into attacking the dragon instead of the castle. The dragon and giant destroy one another, and the boys are again hailed as heroes. After all they have faced, they just wish to go home, but they have no way of doing so.

After King Arthur dubs the boys “Knights of the Round Table,” Merlin produces The Book, which now shows a picture of the boys sitting around the kitchen table at Joe’s birthday party. The Book transports the boys back to the moment they left, where they resolve to read The Book and figure out how the magic works before using it to time travel again.