Posted in Living Books

I’ve been collecting more online books and book lists to share…


http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moa/  The Making Of America
 
http://www.eclectichomeschool.org/resources/booklists/default.asp

 a list of recommended books by subject with descriptions of the books
 
http://www.thehomeschoolmom.com/schoolroom/onlinebooks.php

a list of sites with various online books for homeschool.  This site also has other  free homeschool resources.
 
http://www.fullbooks.com/   Lots of online books
 
http://www.monergism.com/free_online_books.php   Online Christian books.  (Luther, Calvin, Matthew Henry’s commentary, Foxes Book of Martyrs, Jonathon Edwards, Pilgrim’s Progress and others.)
 
http://www.blackmask.com/index.php  Many online books in various formats.  You don’t have to be a member to download books, though it looks like you do.
 
http://www.malaspina.org/home.htm  Has literature by time period, subject and discipline and includes online “great books”.

http://eserver.org/ Iowa State University online literature program—classics to modern
 
http://www.truelightacademy.com/truth.html  A nice list of recommended books by age level.
 
http://ota.ahds.ac.uk/    Oxford University online books and texts
 
http://www.bookpop.com  Listen to children’s  books online written by the author
 
http://www.bnl.com/shorts/          Classic short Stories
 
http://www.sonnets.org/    English Sonnets
 
http://www.hbook.com/booklists/default.asp  Reviews and Recommendations for children’s and young adult literature
 
http://www.poets.org/   Search for Poetry and poets and also organized by state

Posted in Living Books

Once again I’m coming to you with lists of lists.  I’ll say it again. I love lists! Several sites and books offer book lists which can be helpful in homeschooling.  My children have become avid readers and it takes a long time to scour library bookshelves searching for good quality literature for your children and teens (especially teens!).  So many books out there I find either offensive or lifeless or sugary-sweet—what I call candy for the brain.  I find book lists to be a big help, then, in steering my children toward good books.

Let me say that these lists can be quite daunting.  Some lists recommend books much younger than I think is appropriate, so I use the reading or age levels offered only as a guideline.  I’ve tried out some books too early and have found my kids resistant, so I generally don’t force it.  I’ve stopped reading the book, leaving it for another year—or month in some cases.  Often, when they’re ready, they’ll find the book on their own and read it and enjoy it, or I can trust that they will one day if they want to.  I’m realizing that there is a lot of quality literature and my children only need a sampling of it in their youth.  They have their whole lives to discover and enjoy great literature.  My goal is to not cause them to hate it because I force it on them.  I want to lead them to the streams of living books to taste and enjoy.  I want to foster their God-given thirst to learn, to read, to understand, to enjoy, to experience, and to relate.  I have felt in the past that they needed to be knowledgeable in everything in order for me to have done a good job in educating them.  I continually remind myself that my job is to lead them to the river and to show them how to get there on their own.

Well, more on all that another day.  Here are some book lists I’ve found online.  It must be that a lot of folks out there love lists.  Some are specifically homeschool book lists, and some are meant to be used by librarians.  Enjoy!

http://home.comcast.net/~dwtaylor1/ A list makers dream—A list of book lists!

http://www.allreaders.com/  Book reviews

http://nancykeane.com/rl/#Genres  Book lists by genre

http://nancykeane.com/booktalks/default.htm  Book reviews

http://www.classical-homeschooling.org/celoop/1000.html   1000 Good Books List for homeschoolers sorted by reading level and by author.

http://www.angelicum.net/html/the_good_books_in_print_list.html   Compiled by John Senior (1923-99), late classicist professor at the University of Kansas

http://www.accelerated-achievement.com/800books.htm    Another classical list.

http://www.bartleby.com/hc/  The Harvard Classics the Shelf of Fiction--One nice thing is that many of the works are on the website.  Bartleby states about the Harvard Classics:  “The most comprehensive and well-researched anthology of all time comprises both the 50-volume ‘5-foot shelf of books’ and the 20-volume Shelf of Fiction. Together they cover every major literary figure, philosopher, religion, folklore and historical subject through the twentieth century.”

http://www.bartleby.com/nonfiction/ This includes many anthologies of literature, historical documents, speeches, historical scientific documents and essays.  All of barleby.com is worth checking.

http://classkc.org/goodbooks.php  Citizens for Literary Standards in Schools See also:  http://classkc.org/best.php   This is an interesting site.  This site lists great quality books and points out that most are not on the reading lists for students in their school district.

http://www.redshift.com/~bonajo/history.htm  Books to Supplement History—listed by time period.

http://www.redshift.com/~bonajo/sciencebooks.htm  Books to Supplement Science—listed by subject.

http://www.redshift.com/~bonajo/movies.htm  Movies to supplement history—listed by time period.

http://www.redshift.com/~bonajo/easychapter.htm Easy Chapter Books—listed by title.

http://www.lib.muohio.edu/pictbks/ If you’re putting a unit study together or if your younger child is interested in a certain subject, you can search for picture books by subject here.

http://www.ala.org/ala/alsc/awardsscholarships/literaryawds/literaryrelated.htm Here are book lists for books which have received literary awards.  In my opinion, a literary award doesn’t necessarily mean that a book is high quality.  It means that it met the standards for that award.

Posted in Living Books

My 12 year old son, Timothy, has finished nearly all of our biographies at home (We have quite a collection.). Yesterday I offered for him to continue reading in another popular historical fiction series that we have or to read The Boys of ’61 By Charles Coffin.  Of course, I did a sales pitch for Coffin’s book telling him how he had been a reporter imbedded with the troops during the Civil War—just like the reporters for the war in Iraq. I really thought there was no way he’d go for this book that is over a hundred years old, but he did.  I sent him off to read and then go to sleep that evening, wondering if he would find a new friend in Charles Carleton Coffin.  Today I got his report.  He said that it was a little challenging to read at first and at the same time he was surprised how much the same the language was then as now.  He liked the way Coffin described the battles of the Civil War and was amazed that he’d actually met Abraham Lincoln a few times.  He liked that fact that it was a first hand account, too.

If you want to check out Charles Carleton Coffin’s books online, check out www.archive.org.  At this site they have many of Coffin’s books and one biography about him in various formats.  The one I like is the “flip book”.  Someone out there has actually scanned in the books and you can flip the pages and read the actual old book.  It’s almost as good as holding it in your hand.  

Here’s a brief biography of Charles Carleton Coffin: http://www.bohemianbrigade.com/alfred16.html

They do sell this book and others books of Charles Carleton Coffin used at  Alibris.  Check out the link in the  right column.

                                                 --Carmen