OUR TOP ELEVEN FAVORITE BOOKS NOT OFFICIALLY PART OF OUR HOMESCHOOL CURRICULUM, BUT SUBBED IN, READ ALOUD, AND OTHERWISE ENJOYED
Here are some books we have liked a lot . . .
Affiliate link alert
Today as I was perusing the growing Home Education Resources section of my Bookshop Storefront, I experienced again the little thrill of recognition that always strikes me when I come upon a book my children and I have enjoyed – as if I had come upon a friend. The beauty of living books is precisely that, that they are alive to us, and that we remember encountering them as we remembering encountering people who have meant something to us. They leave their resonances in our minds.
That's one of the reasons why it's fun to compile booklists and bookshop sections. It's like gathering friends for a party, and then inviting . . . you. I want you to meet my friends. I think you'll probably like my friends. I believe that your life will be improved through your own acquaintance with them.
Look, here are some of them now.
The French naturalist Jean Henri Fabre is most famous for his classic Fabre's Book of Insects, but in late elementary – Mater Amabilis Level 2, or possibly Level 3 – my two youngest children read and enjoyed Fabre's charming Story Book of Science. In this book, the indefatigable Uncle Paul regales his nephews with the "true story" of the mysteries and miracles of the created order: animal, vegetable, mineral, not excluding the marvels of human invention and ingenuity.
Grammar-land brings the parts of speech quite literally to life (and not only that, but puts them on trial). My early-elementary children – second or third grade – found this book a funny and beguiling way to learn the basics of English syntax.
Among the Farmyard People and others in the Among series by Clara Dillingham Pierson present wonderful little nature-lore stories for young children. My children enjoyed them through early elementary.
H.E. Marshall's gift as an historian lay chiefly in her ability to renarrate ancient texts as compelling stories accessible to young children, without necessarily sugar-coating the personalities of the people involved or the events in which they were caught up. When, in Mater Amabilis Level 2, we were reading early English history, I read Marshall's Tales of Beowulf Told to Children aloud over lunch, as an enthralling literary extra. By the time my children encountered Seamus Heaney's translation in high school, they knew the story, which helped them to follow that denser text.
This series, incidentally, also includes retellings of the Song of Roland and the legends of Robin Hood.
If you could buy only one extra book this year for your family, I'd urge you to make it the beautiful The Lost Words, which I reviewed in great detail last year when it appeared. I would have thought my teenagers had outgrown it, but when my review copy arrived, my then-14-year-old daughter picked it up and immediately began reading.
The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady was a favorite nature-lore book for the same daughter at 12 or 13.
A gift to us from my math-teacher cousin, One Odd Day was a favorite of my preschooler-kindergarteners, who didn't realize that they were gaining number sense from this funky little story about waking up to find the world turned . . . odd.
The Royal Road to Romance, Richard Halliburton's first volume of travel and adventure (some of it quite . . . fantastic), was not written for children. It's somewhat "older" in tone than his Book of Marvels, which Mater Amabilis schedules for Level 3 geography. Still, I had this book in hand, and I read it aloud to an audience of high school, middle school, and young elementary, for all of whom it was a hit.
We enjoyed these little science books by Alvin and Virgina Silverstein, inexpensively reprinted by Dover Books: A World in a Drop of Water, Life in a Bucket of Soil, and others. Accessible for elementary children, but good for middle-schoolers as well.
My favorite book on human anatomy. The section covering human reproduction from conception to birth is beautifully handled, though naturally parents should pre-read before making this book available to their children.
Our favorite first Latin. So much loved that my Latin-teaching daughter and her husband made a pilgrimage to Vindolanda, the fortress town along Hadrian's Wall where the book's story is set, as part of their honeymoon. I defy any other first-Latin curriculum to make that kind of impact.
Don't see you own favorites here? Feel free to browse the section, or ask me to hunt something down for you. I'm always happy to play matchmaker.
As always, please note that these are affiliate links. My family and I are grateful for your patronage. MANY thanks to the anonymous friend who recently purchased Anno's Counting Book and Winter! Much, much appreciated.