2015-16 Reading List

I just realized last night as I was reading aloud to the kids that it is officially the start of the new school year--at least as far as our state defines a school year.  Some years ago I adopted the state's start/stop definition to help me organize our reading list, so it's time to archive this list and begin a new one.

 The Plant that Ate Dirty Socks by Nancy McArthur
Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell
Little Pear by Eleanor Francis Lattimore
The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo
George's Secret Key to the Universe by Lucy and Stephen Hawking
The Apple and the Arrow by Mary and Conrad Buff
Tirzah by Lucille Travis
The Adventures of Buster Bear by Thornton Burgess
Archimedes and the Door of Science by Jeanne Bendick
Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan
Black Ships Before Troy by Rosemary Sutcliff
Old Yeller by Fred Gipson
Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
50 Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin
All About Sam by Lois Lowry
Betsy-Tacy by Maud Hart Lovelace
Wonder by RJ Palacio
Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne
Owls in the Family by Farley Mowatt
You Come Too by Robert Frost
An Elephant in the Garden by Michael Morpurgo
Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl
The Mozart Question by Michael Morpurgo
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Ancient Greek Myths and Legends by Philip Ardagh
Michaelangelo by Diane Stanley
The Storybook of Science by Jean Henri Fabre
The Winged Girl of Knossos by Erick Berry
The King of Men by Olivia Coolidge
The Great Brain by John D Fitzgerald
The Story of Science: Newton at the Center by Joy Hakim
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks
Augustus Caesar's World by Genevieve Foster
The Secret School by Avi

Day by day, the reading we do together seems so insignificant, but cumulatively it adds up to good experiences all the way around. 

It's clear that I was catering to Nature Angel and Little Princess this year--re-reading some old favorites that they missed the first time around--but I think quality literature is quality literature no matter how old you are, and truly, the older kids had a good time feeling young again as they listened in to books they hadn't visited in 5 or 8 or 10 years.

I know I did. :)

Comments

  1. TristanJuly 2, 2016 at 6:04 AM

    I always love reading your lists! And I agree, quality literature speaks to all ages.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Happy Homeschool MomJuly 8, 2016 at 5:31 PM

    I always enjoy reading the books aloud. I love when we discover something new we haven't read but I also love reading old favorites :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anne's Day in the Life: 17, 16, 12, 10, 9, 8, 8, 7, 5, & 5

Image
This is my crew last summer--the day we said goodbye to Pixie as she headed off to college. I actually have all 12 of my children home right now. Rose Red is nearly 20, graduated from our homeschool a year and a half ago, lives at home, and is working as a server at Applebee's as she tries to understand what it means to be an adult. Pixie is newly 18, graduated from our homeschool almost a year ago, is a dance major at BYUI, and is spending her off-track semester working full-time in the 1-year-old room at a daycare. These two still are part of our family days, and their schedules directly impact the rest of us, but I am no longer responsible for their day-to-day educational needs. The remaining 10 are still under my educational supervision.  Among these 10 children we are schooling while we cope with anxiety, depression, FASD, ADHD, DMDD, ODD, ASD, PTSD, and Intellectual Disability. Here is a February Wednesday in our lives. 5:04 am :  Sir Walter Scott's a...
Read more

A Week, Briefly (Summer is not over)

Image
Last August I was not ready for school to start, but I did it anyway because I thought I should. And in September I had mental health crisis of the most serious kind. This August I am not ready for school to start. And I'm honoring that. However, I am ready to document brief moments of the beautiful learning that my kids engage in when I'm not running school. This week Rose Red is in Florida at a surfing camp.  She's with a sweet friend.  I could not be happier for her to have this experience away from home, at the beach, out-of-doors, physically active, and just plain cool. As far as I'm concerned, this is a quarter of a credit of P.E. The rest of us are at home.  My teens are reveling in their last days of bizarre teen sleeping schedules before early morning seminary begins next week. Pixie has been working on memorizing the dances she's choreographed for our dance team.  She'll be teaching the 10-12 year olds and dancing with the 12-17 year o...
Read more

I Had a Birthday

Image
 I am now 52 years old. My children are ages 9, 9, 11, 12, 12, 13, 14, 17, 20, 21, 22, 24. I have been homeschooling for over 20 years. Prior to that, I was a public school teacher (middle school English, K-3 special ed, and K-12 substitute). I find myself feeling very reflective about self, family, home, spiritual growth, marriage, goals, wishes, dreams, etc. Rather than try to put my mental ramblings into reasonable, readable sentences, I'll say this:  It's been a wild ride, and I'm grateful for the life I've lived thus far. I feel very aware of how few homeschooling years remain to me. Oh!  How I want to make them count! This week I did a rather good job at making memories with my children. The teens and I continued The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and our American Literature text.  The best moment of the week was reading The Declaration of Independence from beginning to end.  I cried. (Just a little) The kids (I read it aloud while the younger kids w...
Read more