Literature - Fall 2009

In our home school we read a TON of books for all subjects, but we do have some books that are specifically for Literature. Some books we read in a couple weeks, and other books are spread out over the whole school year.

Literature - Chapter Book

These usually take a couple weeks to a month to read, depending on how interested we are in the story.

We started reading The Princes and the Goblin by George MacDonald, but the kids were worried about the idea of goblins (their previous exposure to goblins being The Lord of the Rings), so I read the book and found these goblins to be stupid, awkward sort of fellows, but my kids aren't buying into my reassurances, and freak out when I bring it out. So we are listening to the Redwall series by Brian Jacques (currently Mattimeo - book 3) which we started listening to on our recent family trip to California. This is one thing I love about homeschooling - when something doesn't work for us we change it! But I would still recommend The Princess and the Goblin to anyone who may be interested and doesn't have a fear of goblins.

Literature Tales

These are books we will read over the course of the school year. We usually read one chapter spread out over a month or one story per week depending on the length of the chapters/book.

American Tall Tales by Adrien Stoutenberg - For example, this books has 8 chapters, so we will read several pages once a week to read an entire chapter in a month.

Little Pilgrim's Progress by Helen L. Taylor - The chapters are short enough to read one per week. This is a beautiful children's version of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and we are really enjoying it. I was amazed that my kids understood my explanation of what an "allegory" is and were able to point out some of the symbolism from the first few chapters (King, Celestial City, etc.)

Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare by Edith Nesbit - This will be the third year we have been reading from this book. We do one to two plays a month. We've read Romeo and Juliet more times, because it is Nyah's favorite (She loves all that drama!). Next year we will move on to Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb, which have a little more detail and story complexity. I am hoping we will catch some live performances of Shakespeare's plays this year, but we'll see what happens. And ever since I watched the movie Tea with Mussoulini I have wanted a miniature Globe Theater with puppets, and I finally found one!! Shakespeare's Globe is on my Christmas list!

Ambleside Online and Milestone's Academy (two curriculum guides I use) both recommend reading Charles Kingsley's The Heroes, which are Greek myths, but instead I am using a beautiful book I already own called A Children's Treasury of Mythology by Margaret Evans Price, which are Greek myths with some Roman tales as well. We read one per week and the kids are really enjoying these as well.