Karen's Homeschool Blog

Read, Read, Read

First a favorite homeschooling quote from Albert Einstein, "If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales".

Homeschooling is a great opportunity to read all kinds of books with your kids.  It is also a great chance to read great books that you didn’t get to as a child or reread your favorites.  Below are some of my favorites, though I am sure I am forgetting some.  I have no commercial interests in any sources of books I list but I have found a few useful. 

First, you can get almost any book in the world from Interlibrary loan, of course it is nice to own some of the best books, especially if you have several children and because often the best books children will read and reread.  In buying books I have a few recommendations, remember the Scholastic Book Flyers you used to take home in school?, well with homeschooling you don’t have to be limited to the one the school thinks is for your grade you can choose from them all.  We used to order as a group though our homeschooling group and some of us would order so many we joked about starting a sub-group “Scholastics Anonymous”.  You can order individually from http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/index.jsp, also if you live near any of their outlet stores it is worth it to get on their mailing lists for the teacher sales they have a few times a year.  Speaking of teacher sales, most major bookstore chains offer teacher discounts with identification.  Often a card from a local homeschool group is enough, others print their own cards, check with the stores near you and ask home you qualify as a homeschooler, if the clerk doesn’t know or says you can’t go up the ladder.  The stores also usually has teacher’s weeks a few times a year and you usually don’t even need id., at least at Border’s so get on their email list.  Some stores will only let you buy “school books” which can be pretty broad; some will let you buy anything in the store (other stores such as craft stores, office supply stores etc. often have programs too, ask).

Some other great places to buy books are:

Chinaberry Books (http://www.chinaberry.com/)  The are a family run business, she homeschooled some of her children as well but the great thing are her recommendations and reviews.  You could buy the books elsewhere or get them from the library but I try to buy from them at least one or twice a year to keep this great company around.  The  have a great assortment of games, books on tape and other great items for your family or gifts, I have found many wonderful things from them from Jim Weiss tapes which made for great family listening on long road trips, to Flux (you have to read about this game to understand), to an aromatherapy product that is great for congestion during colds, so check them out.

Fun Books http://www.fun-books.com/, this company took over the John Holt Bookstore and carries great books about homeschooling including one of my favorites to recommend to beginners, “I Learn Better by Teaching Myself”.  They do some fundraising programs that can be good if you have a homeschool group that needs funds.

So What Should I Read with my Children

The Boxcar Children – Series for young readers, full of mystery and adventure.

Nate the Great - Detective series for beggining readers, full of quirky characters and a lot of puns.

The Indian in the Cupboard Series  -  The original was made into a movie, there are actually three books, the last one is for more mature readers and deals with Skinheads and maybe some other things I don’t remember but I loved these stories.

Artemis Fowl – Another series of very clever books about a boy genius and his encounters with the fairy people who live under the Earth’s surface.  A real hit with kids that love gadgets and technology.

Rifles for Watie – Great Civil War historical Fiction.

The Egypt Game – There was also the Gypsy Game, which wasn’t quite as good but both very imaginative.

The Shakespeare Stealer – Historical Fiction about Shakespeare’s theater and times, and guess what – this book also has a sequel. Midnight Hour Encores – A great book about the sixties, as a father teaches his gifted musical daughter about her parent’s lives before she was born.

The Lives of Christopher Chant – Another series book, it’s hard to figure out the order of the related books but worth it.  They deal with different types of magical peoples and magical worlds that are interconnected.

The Westing Game – We read this clever mystery, unlike any other for it’s age range many times.  Full of great characters and a riveting story.

Daniel Pinkwater – Okay, that’s not the book, he’s an author, he’s got tons of fun books for younger children and young teens, go to the library and choose one to try, you’ll probably get hooked.

The Great Wheel – A favorite non-fiction about building the Ferris Wheel at the Chicago World’s Fair.

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH - About intellegent rats who escaped from a lab and their society.

Some of my favorites from childhood that really held up:

My Side of the Mountain – This also has some sequels, about a boy living off the land.  If you ever saw the movie the beloved falcon gets shot in the end, in the books he continues on through the series.

The Water is Wide – The movie for this one was called Conrack, about a teacher who takes on a group of underprivileged black children living on an isolated small island.

The Born Free Books – About life in the African wild with lions.

Flowers for Algernon - The Movie was called Charley (with the R backwards), about a man who is transformed from a mentally retarted person to a genius and back again, very poignent..

Catch 22 - For the older teens, a great story about government/army bureaucracy.

Some Favorite Classics

The Great Gatsby

To Kill a Mockingbird

Check back I’m sure I’ll think of other books I must add to this list.