Actual live footage of my actual study floor
You can't really talk about narration without also talking about living books. The two go hand-in-hand. If narration is the foundation stone of a Charlotte Mason education, then the idea of the living book is the ground beneath that stone: the firm earth on which you can build the whole house of learning. A child can't narrate a poorly written book. In fact, his education should consist, Charlotte Mason says, of "the very best books appropriate to the child's level." Again, her term for those "very best books" is living books.
But what is a living book?
Well, let's begin by considering what a living book is not, or at least what is not the entire definition of a living book. That is, to qualify as living, and therefore worthy of inclusion as part of a child's education, a book has to tick all the boxes, not just a limited few.
For example, many people define a living book as engaging. As in, a book that "draws children in," "brings concepts to life," or "makes learning fun."
And to an extent, this is true. A living book is not a textbook, at least in the usual sense. It's not dry, fact-driven, put together by a committee for the purpose of presenting information to be regurgitated.
But is engaging, in and of itself, enough of a criterion for a worthy book? After all, lots of things are engaging. Cartoons are engaging. Books of knock-knock jokes are, for a certain age demographic, totally enthralling. Is a book living simply because it's fun?
No. There's got to be more to it than that.
To be living, a book must be written by a particular author, not a committee, and more than that, an author who communicates – again, in excellent prose – ideas in which he or she is invested, and about which he or she is excited. Think of the best teacher you ever had, the teacher who – though you might not always have agreed with his or her particular take on things – managed to make you interested in a subject you perhaps had thought wasn't that interesting. That is the kind of mind and voice you find in a living book. I would also note that this is a mind, and a voice, that assumes children's intelligence and respects them as an audience, rather than feeling the need to talk down to them, or dilute or sweeten the ideas to make them palatable. Children are capable of finding interesting ideas interesting.
To be living, a book has to represent high literary quality. It ought to stretch a child at least a little beyond his comfort zone in terms of vocabulary and complexity of syntax. In declining to speak down to him, the book respects the child's intelligence and character. It assumes that he is a smart person who naturally wants to know things and is willing to challenge himself to find them out, without having to have them coated in sugar to make them palatable. The obvious corollary of this principle is that the world is full of interesting things to find out, and that history, geography, and science do not have to be made entertaining for a child to want to know about them. If you think the world is boring, then you will feel the need to dress it up somehow to amuse a child. But that, as they say, would be a you problem.
To be living, a book must be written by a particular author, not a committee, and more than that, an author who communicates – again, in excellent prose – ideas in which he or she is invested, and about which he or she is excited. Think of the best teacher you ever had, the teacher who – though you might not always have agreed with his or her particular take on things – managed to make you interested in a subject you perhaps had thought wasn't that interesting. That is the kind of mind and voice you find in a living book. I would also note that this is a mind, and a voice, that assumes children's intelligence and respects them as an audience, rather than feeling the need to talk down to them, or dilute or sweeten the ideas to make them palatable. Children are capable of finding interesting ideas interesting.
To be living, a book has to represent high literary quality. It ought to stretch a child at least a little beyond his comfort zone in terms of vocabulary and complexity of syntax. In declining to speak down to him, the book respects the child's intelligence and character. It assumes that he is a smart person who naturally wants to know things and is willing to challenge himself to find them out, without having to have them coated in sugar to make them palatable. The obvious corollary of this principle is that the world is full of interesting things to find out, and that history, geography, and science do not have to be made entertaining for a child to want to know about them. If you think the world is boring, then you will feel the need to dress it up somehow to amuse a child. But that, as they say, would be a you problem.
Here are Charlotte Mason's own words, taken from Volume 2: Parents and Children:
In other words, the words themselves matter. Turns of phrase matter. The language in and of itself must be memorable, for a book to qualify as living.
*****
Does living books always mean fiction? As in, I'll choose a textbook for a "spine," and then bring it to life with some living historical fiction?
No, not really. In her schools Charlotte Mason did use books that were written for use as textbooks: nonfiction accounts of history, or geography, or science. Some of them she wrote herself. Her schools featured texts like H.E. Marshall's Our Island Story and This Country of Ours. Other living nonfiction books we've used in our family include Elizabeth O'Neill's The World's Story for middle-school world history, M.B. Synge's A Book of Discovery for middle-school geography, and Henri Fabre's Story Book of Science for upper-primary science. In other words, a "spine text" itself can and should be a living book. There's no reason why any book that needs to be "brought to life" should have a place in your child's education.
My child doesn't like this book. I really don't think it's very living.
Well, maybe, but I'm not sure that a child's preference is necessarily the only measure of a book's worth. My children have liked all kinds of things . . . often because those things were easy and entertaining, not necessarily because they were good. Now, I tend to trust my children a lot, but I also know something about human nature. I know that I don't always especially like the selections my voice teacher chooses for me to sing, because I can't just pick them up and sing them well off the top of my head. I would much rather stand around in the kitchen singing stuff I know, transposed into a nice comfy key that doesn't stretch my range, and admire the sound of my voice while I'm singing that way: so much easier than working at a song that challenges me, and that I sing appallingly the first fifty-seven times I try to sing it.
Do you see what I'm getting at here? Living doesn't mean easy, or comfortable, or something you settle into for some passive entertainment. We do all need some comfort reading in our lives, but in the context of formal lessons, reading ought to challenge, at least a little. It shouldn't overwhelm, but it should stretch the child beyond his own boundaries. As students get older, reading should get harder. It's still engaging, but it demands some effort on the part of the reader to engage. It's like the difference between talking to your lifelong best friend and talking to someone you don't know well and aren't sure you like. Isn't it incumbent on you, especially as a Christian, to try to find something to like about that person, some way to connect? We don't always like having to do these things, and our children will not always like having to do them, either. But this is an area where I think the value of difficult growth has to override mere preference.
So, what's the payoff of all this effort with the living books?
Less need for a formal writing or vocabulary program, ever:
The language your child hears and absorbs through reading is the language that will form him as a writer. If you want your child to be a sophisticated speaker and writer, then you have to feed him a linguistically sophisticated diet. Living books do a huge amount of heavy lifting in this area. Commit to a feast of them as your child's daily intellectual nourishment, and you really will not need extras like vocabulary workbooks or, to a great extent, how-to-write programs. This is not to say that you won't ever do formal composition, just that it requires a lot less of you to teach modes of composition to a student who basically already knows how to write.
The ability to read actively and engage even with difficult reading.
Because . . . you've been practicing this from Day 1. Reading living books and asking for narration establishes the habit of engaged reading.
Virtue.
Does that surprise you? It seems to me that the pursuit of an excellent education is the pursuit of virtue. To grapple and persevere with a complex, detail-dense book is to develop patience, diligence, humility (because you don't just pick the book up and get it all and feel smart on the first go), and other virtues besides. This obviates the need for a curriculum for learning about virtue, though of course it's always good to remark that working at a given book is helping your child learn whatever virtue it is.
I've heard a lot about a particular popular book or series and wonder whether it counts as living, and would work for my homeschool.
OK, here's the test. Set a sample page of that book or series next to, say, a page of H.E. Marshall, or Elizabeth O'Neill. Compare the prose styles and vocabulary. Does one seem simplistic next to the other?
Yes, the series in question, whatever it is, engaging. Perhaps many people report that their children love it. Perhaps it's written by one person with obvious enthusiasm as well as expertise in his or her subject. That would be two boxes ticked out of three.
No, not really. In her schools Charlotte Mason did use books that were written for use as textbooks: nonfiction accounts of history, or geography, or science. Some of them she wrote herself. Her schools featured texts like H.E. Marshall's Our Island Story and This Country of Ours. Other living nonfiction books we've used in our family include Elizabeth O'Neill's The World's Story for middle-school world history, M.B. Synge's A Book of Discovery for middle-school geography, and Henri Fabre's Story Book of Science for upper-primary science. In other words, a "spine text" itself can and should be a living book. There's no reason why any book that needs to be "brought to life" should have a place in your child's education.
My child doesn't like this book. I really don't think it's very living.
Well, maybe, but I'm not sure that a child's preference is necessarily the only measure of a book's worth. My children have liked all kinds of things . . . often because those things were easy and entertaining, not necessarily because they were good. Now, I tend to trust my children a lot, but I also know something about human nature. I know that I don't always especially like the selections my voice teacher chooses for me to sing, because I can't just pick them up and sing them well off the top of my head. I would much rather stand around in the kitchen singing stuff I know, transposed into a nice comfy key that doesn't stretch my range, and admire the sound of my voice while I'm singing that way: so much easier than working at a song that challenges me, and that I sing appallingly the first fifty-seven times I try to sing it.
Do you see what I'm getting at here? Living doesn't mean easy, or comfortable, or something you settle into for some passive entertainment. We do all need some comfort reading in our lives, but in the context of formal lessons, reading ought to challenge, at least a little. It shouldn't overwhelm, but it should stretch the child beyond his own boundaries. As students get older, reading should get harder. It's still engaging, but it demands some effort on the part of the reader to engage. It's like the difference between talking to your lifelong best friend and talking to someone you don't know well and aren't sure you like. Isn't it incumbent on you, especially as a Christian, to try to find something to like about that person, some way to connect? We don't always like having to do these things, and our children will not always like having to do them, either. But this is an area where I think the value of difficult growth has to override mere preference.
So, what's the payoff of all this effort with the living books?
Less need for a formal writing or vocabulary program, ever:
The language your child hears and absorbs through reading is the language that will form him as a writer. If you want your child to be a sophisticated speaker and writer, then you have to feed him a linguistically sophisticated diet. Living books do a huge amount of heavy lifting in this area. Commit to a feast of them as your child's daily intellectual nourishment, and you really will not need extras like vocabulary workbooks or, to a great extent, how-to-write programs. This is not to say that you won't ever do formal composition, just that it requires a lot less of you to teach modes of composition to a student who basically already knows how to write.
The ability to read actively and engage even with difficult reading.
Because . . . you've been practicing this from Day 1. Reading living books and asking for narration establishes the habit of engaged reading.
Virtue.
Does that surprise you? It seems to me that the pursuit of an excellent education is the pursuit of virtue. To grapple and persevere with a complex, detail-dense book is to develop patience, diligence, humility (because you don't just pick the book up and get it all and feel smart on the first go), and other virtues besides. This obviates the need for a curriculum for learning about virtue, though of course it's always good to remark that working at a given book is helping your child learn whatever virtue it is.
I've heard a lot about a particular popular book or series and wonder whether it counts as living, and would work for my homeschool.
OK, here's the test. Set a sample page of that book or series next to, say, a page of H.E. Marshall, or Elizabeth O'Neill. Compare the prose styles and vocabulary. Does one seem simplistic next to the other?
Yes, the series in question, whatever it is, engaging. Perhaps many people report that their children love it. Perhaps it's written by one person with obvious enthusiasm as well as expertise in his or her subject. That would be two boxes ticked out of three.
But that third box, the high-literary-quality box, matters. It's huge. It is where living books do the work of vocabulary and composition programs. Unless you can tick that third box too, the book isn't living. It isn't "the best book available for the child's level."
That doesn't mean that you shouldn't own and enjoy a given book or series as a supplement and a pleasure read. But for school time, choose a book that's truly living, that stretches and challenges at least as much as it entertains. If the reader has to work to find it entertaining, the satisfaction of that book will be far more lasting.
NOTE: There are living picture books, living books for very small children, even – I think – "living" films and videos (the PBS documentaries based on David Macaulay's Pyramid, City, Castle, and Cathedral come to mind). "Living" doesn't begin with Our Island Story! But again, at every level, you're looking for the highest quality prose, illustrations that aren't dumbed down or ugly, the notion of the book, or film, or video, as a work of art made with children as real people in mind.
More about living books:
Toward a definition of a living book
What is a living book?
Why should we read challenging older books?
Finding unbiased history books to read for school?
That doesn't mean that you shouldn't own and enjoy a given book or series as a supplement and a pleasure read. But for school time, choose a book that's truly living, that stretches and challenges at least as much as it entertains. If the reader has to work to find it entertaining, the satisfaction of that book will be far more lasting.
NOTE: There are living picture books, living books for very small children, even – I think – "living" films and videos (the PBS documentaries based on David Macaulay's Pyramid, City, Castle, and Cathedral come to mind). "Living" doesn't begin with Our Island Story! But again, at every level, you're looking for the highest quality prose, illustrations that aren't dumbed down or ugly, the notion of the book, or film, or video, as a work of art made with children as real people in mind.
More about living books:
Toward a definition of a living book
What is a living book?
Why should we read challenging older books?
Finding unbiased history books to read for school?