Your selection does matter....

There are so many reasons why we homeschool. I added another one just this week. I realized on Saturday just how completely my mostly public education failed me in the area of reading and literture. I know that my parents tried to compensate, and I'm not sure that the elementary teachers are really to blame. The books I remember reading and enjoying the most were read during those early years.

I ask you, how can a person finish a "Survey of British Lit" without even reading one chapter of Jane Austen? any Jane Austen? Charles Dickens? Sir Walker Scott's "Ivanhoe"? This is the book that brought me to this realization. I'm now reading "Ivanhoe" so that I can discuss it with my 4th grader. Sadly, he'll probably finish it before I will. I told him that if he wasn't careful he'd grow up to be a bibliophile, to which he replied "I already am a lover of books". There's just something about a well told story.

Two books we will never read in this school: The Heart of Darkness and The Lord of the Flies.

What will we be sure to cover in the coming years: Jane Austen, Alexander Dumas, James Fenimore Cooper, Sir Walker Scott, Gene Stratten-Porter, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Hans Christian Anderson, Aesop, The Brothers Grim, Charles Perrault, Padraic Colum, Longfellow, Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Lewis Carroll, Pearl S. Buck, Robert Lawson, Tennyson, Ian Flemming, GA Henty, A.A. Milne, James Daugherty, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Richard Atwater, Eleanor Estes, Lois Lenski, Elizabeth George Speare, E.B. White, Rudyard Kipling, Booth Tarkington, Jules Verne, Edward Lear, Elizabeth Montgomery, Gary Paulson, Ester Forbes, Laura Ingles-Wilder and more of the Bible.... this should keep us busy until middle school.

What have we already read? Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, Island of the Blue Dolphins, Black Beauty, several Marguerite Henry books, the Hobbit, Strawberry Girl, Red Sails to Capri, Betty MacDonald (Mrs. Pigglewiggle), Elizabeth George Speare, Rudyard Kipling (Captain's Courageous), versions of Jules Verne, Robert Louis Stevenson (Treasure Island), Jean Lee Latham (Carry on Mr. Bowditch) - a wonderful book for all ages, a beautifully illustrated copy of Gulliver's Travels by Swift, countless picture books and the Bible.

We are currently reading "Swiss Family Robinson" by Johann Wyss. In parting I leave you with this poem.



A Book by Edgar Guest

“Now” - said a good book unto me -
“Open my pages and you shall see
Jewels of wisdom and treasures fine,
Gold and silver in every line,
And you may claim them if you but will
Open my pages and take your fill.

“Open my pages and run them o’er,
Take what you choose of my golden store.
Be you greedy, I shall not care -
All that you seize I shall gladly spare;
There is never a lock on my treasure doors,
Come - here are my jewels, make them yours!

“I am just a book on your mantel shelf,
But I can be part of your living self;
If only you’ll travel my pages through,
Then I will travel the world with you.
As two wines blended make better wine,
Blend your mind with these truths of mine.

“I’ll make you fitter to talk with men,
I’ll touch with silver the lines you pen,
I’ll lead you nearer the truth you seek,
I’ll strengthen you when your faith grows weak -
This place on your shelf is a prison cell,
Let me come into your mind to dwell!”