Thursday, February 05, 2009

Homeschool Memoirs: Reading List

In a meme mood and decided to try out Homeschool Memoirs:

Reading always improves your mind and knowledge of things of the past, present, and your opinion and views on the future. It’s essential to a proper education. I have never enjoyed reading as much as I should have, but as of late taken it’s been taking up some of my time.

THEME

I know many of you either have a long list of books yourself or have one for the children for schooling. Please share your lists of reading material for this year. You can put them in any way you like - by genre, age, author, fiction, subject. You can also share your list from last year.

I'll echo what one participant said: Reading doesn't necessarily improve the mind. I too have read a lot of stuff I wish I'd never touched. So, all I can do now is try to guide my children to love of good books, not junk books.

I don't plan all my kids' (or my) reading a year ahead. But some books I plan to read with the kids, or have them read this year, are The Phantom Tollbooth, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit, Treasure Island (which is in process now), Inkheart and the sequels if worthwhile, books related to our history studies (we're just finishing World War II), some natural science, and some biographies: Marie Curie, Eric Liddell, some others.

Because of my state homeschooling law, I log books based on the academic year, which runs from July 1 through June 30. These are the books we've read or listened to so far this academic year:

Books read aloud or listened to on cd:

The Wilderking Trilogy – Jonathan Rogers

The Twenty-One Balloons
– William Pene Dubois
Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
Robinson Crusoe
– Daniel DeFoe

The Good Master
– Kate Seredy

The Star of Kazan
– Eva Ibbotson

A Christmas Carol
– Charles Dickens
Around the World in 80 Days – Jules Verne
The Wright 3
– Blue Balliett

Chasing Vermeer
– Blue Balliett
Full Steam Ahead: The Race to Build a Transcontinental Railroad – Rhoda Blumberg
The Way We Work – David Macaulay

Strange Lives of Familiar Insects – Edwin Way Teale
Fabre's Book of Insects

The Geese of Beaver Bog - Bernd Heinrich
Number the Stars - Lois Lowry
The Willoughbys - Lois Lowry

The Boy's reading list; this doesn't include the "browsing books" about airplanes, animals, explorers, etc, that he pores over each day:

The Lightning Thief – Rick Riordan
The Titan's Curse – Rick Riordan
The Sea of Monsters – Rick Riordan
Danger in the Dark – Tom Lalicki
Bunnicula – James Howe
Harry Potter series – J. K. Rowling
Danger in the Dark – Tom Lalicki
Shots at Sea – Tom Lalicki
Bunnicula Meets Edgar Allan Crow – James Howe
The Celery Stalks at Midnight – James Howe
The Shakespeare Stealer - Gary Blackwood
Shakespeare's Scribe – Gary Blackwood
Traitor's Gate - Avi
Crispin: The Cross of Lead – Avi
The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey – Trenton Lee Stewart
Crispin: At the Edge of the World – Avi
Scottish Seas – Douglas Jones
Falcons of France – Charles Nordhoff
Nick of Time – Ted Bell
The Machine Gunners – Robert Westfall
The Railroads – Leonard Everett Fisher
Spellbinder: The Life of Harry Houdini –
Tom Lalicki
Wilfrid Grenfell, Arctic Adventurer –
Linda Finlayson
Rough Riding Reformer: Theodore Roosevelt –
Gary L. Blackwood
Woodrow Wilson –
Mike Venezia
The Story of D-Day, June 6, 1944 –
Bruce Bliven, Jr.
Special Effects – Rick Clise

Weapons of War – John Hamilton

Fast-Attack Submarine: The Seawolf Class – Gregory Payan

How the Future Began: Everyday Life – Clive Gifford
Sea of Trolls - Nancy Farmer - in process

The Girl's list; this doesn't include all the craft and cooking books she pores over:

Emily and the Incredible Shrinking Rat – Lynne Jonell
The Copycat Mystery – Gertrude Chandler Warner
The Cereal Box Mystery
- Gertrude Chandler Warner
Cally's Enterprise
– Claudia Mills
< Allergic to my Family – Liza Ketchum Murrow
The Railway Children
– E. Nesbit
Bunnicula – James Howe
The Puppeteer's Apprentice

Half Magic –
Edward Eager
Muggie Maggie –
Beverly Cleary

Magic by the Lake – Edward Eager
Nighty-Nightmare
– James Howe
Beautiful Stories for Children from Shakespeare
– E. Nesbit
The Saturdays
– Elizabeth Enright
The Last of the Really Great Wangdoodles
– Julie Andrews Edwards
Blue Willow
– Doris Gates
Nory Ryan's Song
– Patricia Reilly Giff
Maggie's Door
– Patricia Reilly Giff
The Gift of the Pirate Queen
– Patricia Reilly Giff

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle
– Avi
The Well-Wishers
– Edward Eager
The Quiltmaker's Journey
– Jeff Brumbeau
Plain Girl
– Virginia Sorenson
Early Sunday Morning: The Pearl Harbor Diary of Amber Billows (Dear America series)
One Eye Laughing, the Other Weeping: The Diary of Julie Weiss
(Dear America series)
The House Above the Trees
– Ethel Cook Elliot
Weedflower
– Cynthia Kadohata
The Silver Pencil
– Alice Dalgliesh
Nim's Island – Wendy Orr
Nim at Sea
– Wendy Orr
The Hungry Year
Connie Brummel Crook
Rough Riding Reformer: Theodore Roosevelt
– Gary L. Blackwood
A Cup of Cold Water
- Christine Fahrenhorst
Edith Cavell: Nurse, Spy, Heroine
– Adele DeLeeuw
The Amazing Voyage of the New Orleans
– Judith St. George
Robert Fulton's Steamboat
– Renee C. Rebman
Steamboat! The Story of Captain Blanche Leathers
– Judith Heide Gilliland
Voyage on the Great Titanic – The Diary of Margaret Ann Brady
(Dear America series)
Christmas After All – the Great Depression Diary of Minnie Swift
(Dear America series)
Woodrow Wilson
– Mike Venezia

Survival in the Storm: The Dust Bowl Diary of Grace Edwards (
Dear America)

Vermeer – Mike Venezia
The Bread Sister of Sinking Creek - Robin Moore
Thimble Summer - Elizabeth Enright (in process)

For more book lists (I can't resist them), see Homeschool Memoirs.

2 comments:

KarenW said...

Great list of books! We read The Last of the Really Great Wangdoodles a while back. Fun book.

Quinne said...

Hi Margaret :) Thanks so much for sharing your lists! I see several here that we are hoping to read in the next few years. Have a lovely weekend, Q