“A garden, a museum, a table, a church—which is to say a monastery”

[Scroll down if you want to skip this conversation and just see a few more pictures of our trip to Mount Angel Abbey, our local Benedictine Monastery. CC Friends, sing it with me: “Benedict and Monasticism…” Can you stop there?]

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Metaphor is POWERFUL. It ignites the imagination. It allows us to form images, to “picture to oneself.” It allows us to hold an image in our heads that is simple and concrete but so profound and nuanced that we can contemplate its meaning for a long period of time.

Metaphors are VIVID.

One of the ways in which we create metaphors is to ask comparison questions.

How is _______ like _________.

Comparison is one of the 5 Common Topics. You do not have to compare two seemingly similar things. Metaphor, particularly, is the comparison of two unlike things. A pen is like a pencil is not a metaphor. A pen is like a sword is a metaphor.

One of my favorite experiences this summer was at the Homeschooling from Rest Retreat when Jennifer Dow led us in a discussion comparing The Nightingale to Classical education.

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Recently Andrew Kern asked "If the model for a school isn't the home, what is it?" He's known for his ambiguous, open-ended questions, but I had been pondering this a bit after watching The Liturgical Classroom and Virtue Formation with Jenny Rallens, so I timidly answered "a monastery?" Dr. Christopher Perrin chimed in a bit later with "A garden, museum, table and church--which is to say a monastery." This is a much fuller and more beautiful (and certainly less timid) answer. (And he tagged me in his answer, so I know I've "arrived." [wink])

I've been avoiding organizing and planning for the coming school year (paralyzed, really), but those four words have been running though my mind and heart: a garden, museum, table, and church. What do these mean? How would you model a school after these four elements? How would they inform your day or the content of your lessons? Are they physical realities or metaphorical? Both? How?

As these questions were swirling in my brain, I asked them on my Facebook page. Many friends joined in the discussion, and I wanted to share a bit of it here so that I could return to it again and again. It’s a long discussion, and I’ve only shared a portion here, but I hope it speaks into your life as you learn and teach your children (whether you homeschool or not).

[After this Facebook conversation I attended a Lost Tools of Writing workshop with Matt Bianco. He began our day by asking each attendee to share a metaphor for education. There was no time for explanation or discussion, but just reading all the metaphors on the board (more than thirty) was a powerful beginning to our day. We were able to make our own images and thoughts from the words. Journey, garden, window, feast. Climbing a mountain.]

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One of the questions that came up in discussion is whether the home is a better model for a school and whether a monastery is modeled after a home.

I realized that the reason “a monastery” feeds my imagination in ways that “home” does not is that it is outside of my own reality.

For me, the idea of home is maybe too close to home—it’s more difficult for me to be metaphorical and imaginative about something that is so much a part of my every waking moment that I can't see it from the outside. Harder to make a model out of home when I'm not currently "doing home" in the way that I should.

I do struggle with my own disobedience and the messiness of ordinary life. I feel like I need an image in my head to inspire and encourage me despite my failings. When I picture a home, it's either my home with its failings or a home that is not my home. When I picture a garden, a table, a museum, a church in the context of a monastery, they are not my home but can be applied to my home. It is a vivid metaphor for me.

My friend questioned whether those things are metaphors or real things.

I think they are both metaphorical and physical realities. The metaphorical meaning of garden might be a right relationship with all of creation, but certainly we could also have a physical garden at our own home and that may be the best way to practice interacting with nature rightly.

Sara Masarik:

I think that the metaphors are correct because when the esoteric or imaginative value is applied properly, we get a physical result that resembles the original idea.

Say a garden, for example. When I am taking care of my garden, I am doing physical work with living organisms. I am stewarding all of the life that is in my care. That is a physical act of obedience for a spiritual or metaphysical principle. So part of why I garden, because I do, is because that physical work puts me in touch with the metaphysical truth, in both physical and spiritual ways.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it is a spiral. By physically caring for the garden, I am honing the spiritual principle which then further enables me to be a better caretaker of the physical obligations.

What I am not communicating effectively is that I loved it when he mentioned monastery because I think that's what monasteries do. They seek to pair the physical realities with the metaphysical realities in a way that is deeply obedient.

Me:

I think you just hit the nail on the head, Sara Masarik. A monastery takes the physical model and realities of home and connects them to the metaphysical realities. In that way, I think a monastery is a perfect model for a school (particularly a classical school) with a student moving from the concrete to the abstract, his studies culminating in philosophy and theology.

Sara Masarik:

Yes! That! A monastery is a garden. And a home. And a school. And a hospital. But all for the soul as well as the body. A monastery strives to serve with feet on earth and hearts and heads in heaven. And that, I think, is what our homes can be as well.

Jennifer Bascom:

I've noticed in my faith that the monasteries seem to represent a place between Heaven and Earth. The monks and nuns are like intercessors, praying all the time. They do some light work to keep things going but their main focus is prayer. In a home we can imitate that ideal by praying the hours and everyone pitching in to make the work light on everyone, and we can follow the same calendar and fasting/feasting rhythm but there will be more of a focus on worldly things like working outside the home and activities that accompany family life. The home is a perfect place to imitate some of the aspects of a monastery for peaceful godly living and a perfect place for school and learning I think.

Stacy LaPointe:

I don't think of a monastery as involving light work. Maybe I'm wrong, but I see it as very much about the discipline of hard work in the important aspects of life—in personal habits and labor, in relationships and seeking godly ways to be with your fellow community members, and in spiritual study and prayer. That is exactly like a family, or it can be. I like the idea of imagining it in that setting too because it helps me to abstract it from my very messy home monastery.

Jessi Caca:

Our Home: A garden, museum, table and church.
I feel comfortable leaving school out completely with those five words connected. Home, garden, museum, table, church. That's what we're doing. We're not homeschooling, we're lifeliving. And what is that? "A garden, museum, table and church."

I admit I'd not naturally have ever come to the idea of museum, had I thought about this for my whole life, but I do see it fits. Or I want it to fit. We are concerned with treasuring the best of civilization and curating the beautiful, true, and good. That's museuming.

Mindy Pickens:

Rudy and I are discussing this in the car on our way to star watching. He says he thinks garden, museum, table, and church make him think of categories of learning: learn with your hands, from labor and observation, nurturing and growth in a garden; Learn from the past, and particularly beautiful things from the past as in a museum; learn from each other, from community and relationship being nourished at a table; and learn from God, from sacred history and tradition and scripture as in a church.

Tracy Evans:

The garden...Creation that points to a creator. The table....fellowship, communion. A museum...history..standing on the shoulders of those who came before us, traditions. The Church..living the liturgy in our homes.

Danielle Cyrus:

[Regarding resistance] And then I think, creating the vision amongst my little people (or students in a school) maybe starts with these images? Invitation to the table; invitation into the garden to cultivate beauty and order; invitation into worship; invitation to look into the past?

Lynn Wilcox:

A monastery is PERFECT, just as a home from a previous era, as both were expected to be self-sufficient from income, to food, to education, to worship, etc.

Joellen Armstrong:

Surrounding the kids with beauty from nature, giving them guidance to the Father, giving them good things for life (table - food, stories, knowledge rooted in Truth, friendship), and being, & providing for them, spiritual mentorship...

Holly Karstens:

Cultivate, contemplate, nourish and glorify. Cultivate wisdom, contemplate beauty, nourish the soul and glorify God through it all.

Me:

Charlotte Mason says that there are three branches of knowledge: knowledge of man, creation, and God. Philosophy is split into three branches: moral, natural, and divine. Maybe a museum, a garden, a church correspond respectively. And a table represents community, communion, and celebration. All of these are practiced in obedience and worship.

Stacy LaPointe:

“In my literature classes we look at books through these philosophical lenses here--man versus self, man versus society, and man versus God.”

Rebecca McAllister:

“If school is a garden, a museum, a table and a church, then learning is to grow, to observe, to partake and to worship. How often do we neglect one or more of those components when attempting to teach?”

Rachel Goodman:

We often we find great truth in what *isn't* as well as what *is*. So...wee brainstorm...what does a monastery NOT have? I think the similarity is a good start to begin intentionally adding those things to our home and home education but I'm thoughtful about what intentionally needs to go.

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:: On the word "museum" and how it relates to a "musical" education (The Liberal Arts Tradition, Beauty for Truth's Sake...):

In TLAT it says "The musical (coming from the same root word as "museum") education was an education in wonder. It formed the heart and the moral imagination of the youth... They taught passions more than skills and content. They sowed the seeds which would grow into a lifelong love of learning." "It is a total education including the heart—the memory and passions and imagination" and it is "an education in wonder through engagement with reality as a delightful living museum—engagement with...the songs, stories, and art of human culture."

The word museum comes from the "muses," right? And the muses deal with human endeavor/creativity. This video names 9 muses: history, poetry, epic poetry, astronomy, song, dance, tragedy, comedy, history, and hymns.

 

:: Imagery of a table by Marc Hays [I adore this one! Click on the link and read it all.]:

Imagine a table lacking no good thing: beautiful in its own right.

But man shall not live by bread alone. As indispensable as physical nourishment is, we need more. Our appetites yearn for more than meat and drink, for more than bread and cheese. Our natures yearn for knowledge and understanding, for something to learn and something to say.

:: Abbots + Mothers by Korney Garrison @ One Deep Drawer

In his Rule, St Benedict says that the one who is abbot of the monastery must listen with the ears of the heart.

:: Stratford Caldecott has a few quotes that may apply here.

“At the heart of any culture worthy of the name is not work but leisure, schole in Greek, a word that lies at the root of the English word ‘school.’ At its highest, leisure is contemplation. It is an activity that is its own justification, the pure expression of what it is to be human. It is what we do. The ‘purpose’ of the quadrivium was to prepare us to contemplate God in an ordered fashion, to take delight in the source of all truth, beauty, and goodness, while the purpose of the trivium was to prepare us for the quadrivium. The ‘purpose’ of the Liberal Arts is therefore to purify the soul, to discipline the attention so that it becomes capable of devotion to God; that is, prayer.”

"Liturgy therefore starts with remembrance. We do not make ourselves from nothing. To be here at all is a gift... The liturgy...is the ultimate school of thanks. In the circle of giving, receiving, and being given, the one divine essence is revealed as an eternal threefold liturgy of love, prayer, and praise. When we come to Mass--or to the nearest equivalent of that liturgy our faith permits--we should be able to experience a sense that here, at last, all the threads of our education are being brought together. If we don't, something is wrong with our education or our liturgy. Science and art, mathematics and ethics, history and psychology, the worlds of nature and the spirit, are all present in a liturgy that gives them a home and a meaning."

“Education begins in the Trinity. Praise (of beauty), service (of goodness), and contemplation (of truth) are essential to the full expression of our humanity. The cosmos is liturgical by its very nature.”

On my book stack

The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and "Women's Work"

Wisdom from the Monastery: The Rule of St. Benedict for Everyday Life

Picture Books

The Monk Who Grew Prayer

The Saint and His Bees

The Holy Twins: Benedict and Scholastica

 

On my Instagram page, you can hear a short recording of the bells ringing for midday prayer and the monks chanting the midday prayer.

Liturgy and Children’s Movies

“Liturgy” has been on my mind all summer long. I have several long blog posts in the works, and The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and “Women’s Work”; The Monk Who Grew Prayer (picture book); and Wisdom from the Monastery: The Rule of St. Benedict for Everyday Life are on my night stand.

As I was watching (again) Jenny Rallens’ video lecture The Liturgical Classroom and Virtue Formation, I was reminded of the above passage from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery—”leisure” also having been on my mind for the past couple years. The Little Prince has important words for children and adults alike on the subject of being human. Our culture is so focused on efficiency and entertainment, we forget that walking at our leisure toward a spring of fresh water is often the point.

The Little Prince has recently been made into a beautiful children’s movie. The original story is something of a book within a book movie, as the movie does not follow the original plot (because it doesn’t have much of one—it’s more of a dreamy philosophical ramble). The movie keeps the theme and spirit of the story, however, and it is masterfully rendered.

Bonus: The Little Prince is on Netflix streaming.

 

And then today, in a discussion on Facebook (truly, one of my favorite places because of the friends I’ve made, the pages I follow, and the groups to which I belong), I discovered Shaun the Sheep Movie. I’ve loved the animated shorts, but I didn’t realize that a movie had been made.

The Liturgies of ‘Shaun the Sheep’ @ Christ and Pop Culture connects all the dots for me. Delightful synchronicity. 

When we think of liturgical worship, our minds probably jump to its verbal components. If we do, drawing analogies between Shaun the Sheep Movie and church life might appear odd, given the film’s complete lack of comprehensible dialogue. Yet as Smith points out, liturgies are deeper than mere rational exercises, and they are meant to embody loves through habit. God’s Word itself reflects this fact.

Bonus: Shaun the Sheep Movie is free streaming for Amazon Prime members.

Stay tuned for more on Liturgy.

Story Moves the Hearts and Minds of Men

:: Story Lines, not Party Lines by Rod Dreher @ The Imaginative Conservative

What happened brings to mind Pope Benedict XVI’s observation that the most convincing arguments for Christianity aren’t propositional arguments at all but rather the art and the saints that the faith produces—that is, the stories Christians tell and live…

Argument has its place, but story is what truly moves the hearts and minds of men. The power of myth—which is to say, of storytelling—is the power to form and enlighten the moral imagination, which is how we learn right from wrong, the proper ordering of our souls, and what it means to be human…

Kirk understood that the world might be won or lost on front porches, in bedrooms at night, around family hearths, in movie theaters and anywhere young people hear, see, or read the stories that fill and illuminate their moral imaginations. If you do not give them good stories, they will seek out bad ones.

“And the consequences will be felt not merely in their failure of taste,” Kirk said, “but in their misapprehension of human nature, lifelong; and eventually, in the whole tone of a nation.”

Let Us Tell Better Stories to Our Culture, to Our Children

What story will we tell our culture?

What will it reveal about what we believe, love, and allow into our hearts to shape our affections?

 

:: Stories are Light; Ranting is Arson by S.D. Smith @ BreakPoint

'Chuck Colson wisely said that “politics is downstream of culture.” And what feeds the ecosystem of culture more than anything else? Stories. Stories. By the time the election comes, it’s too late. It’s been too late for a long time. Our hearts were already won over by the stories we loved as children, the tales that shaped us as profoundly as anything else in life. Likely more.'

 

:: The Age of Hooper: On Calculation, Poetry, and the Grace That Will Save the World by Andrew Kern @ CiRCE

"You cannot build a business on calculation, not to mention a family, a household, a tribe, a city, a state, or a confederation of states.

"You cannot build a moral code on calculation.

"You cannot reduce instruction or assessment to calculation.

"You cannot do philosophy or theology with calculation.

"It is not information that will save the world, but grace; and grace comes in the story of an image-restoring Son."

 

:: Tolkien Alternatives to the “Benedict Option” @ Crisis Magazine

"There are times when the burden of need and our own limitations might tempt us to become discouraged. But precisely then we are helped by the knowledge that, in the end, we are only instruments in the Lord’s hands; and this knowledge frees us from the presumption of thinking that we alone are personally responsible for building a better world."

 

:: You Barely Make a Difference, and That’s a Good Thing @ Ancient Faith

"We have no commandment from God to make the world a better place. We have no commandment from God to “make a difference.” Only God makes a difference, and only God knows what “better” would actually mean. As Christians, the proper life is one lived in accordance with the commandments. We should love. We should forgive. We should be generous and kind. We should give thanks to God always and for everything."

 

:: Flannery O’Connor’s Hollow Men @ The Imaginative Conservative

"Many of Flannery O’Connor’s stories portray the ineptness of men to uphold traditional ideals of manhood. The men show no leadership, they do not protect or care for their family members, they lack all manner of chivalry, and they lose a sense of priority as they commit to careers and professions or social and political agendas at the expense of their family members. In these stories, the failure of men to live with honor, integrity, and magnanimity leads to tragic loss of family members they neglected in their pursuit of political causes or personal desires."

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SKIP THE REST OF THIS POST IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO READ ABOUT POLITICS ON THIS BLOG.

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:: Four Issues to Consider Before You Vote Trump - What is Really at Stake @ Samuel Whitefield

"Despite his wickedness, many Christians are being rallied to Trump’s cause by the idea that we must do anything to prevent a Clinton presidency. However, I want to say boldly that a Clinton presidency is not the biggest thing at stake in this election. The biggest thing at stake in this election is the church’s prophetic voice to the culture. The church’s role in the national discourse is at stake and that is far more important than who the next president is. Trading our voice in culture in an attempt to prevent a Clinton presidency should be a horrific thought to us.”

[If anyone comments on this post to tell me that any critique of Trump is support for Clinton, or that my vote for a third party is not actually a vote for a third party but a vote for Clinton, or that a third party can’t win, or that Trump’s character does not matter because Clinton is worse, or that Trump is a “Christian,” or that God can use anyone, or that character doesn’t matter because we are not electing a religious leader, or that I’m singling out Trump because I did not post about Clinton, or that we only have two choices because our secular world tells us so, or that I must not care about the world my children live in, then they have completely and utterly missed the point of this post.]

 

Are we telling stories of hope or fear? Love or hate? Do the right thing regardless of the outcome because God is in control, or the end justifies the means? Be a person of integrity even if no one is watching, or do what it takes to win? Christianity is the “long view” or American politics is the “long view”? In whom are we placing our trust and confidence and fealty?

Reading Challenge 2016 ~ June

"...The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience, and the novel, of course, is a way to have experience. The lady who only read books that improved her mind was taking a safe course--and a hopeless one. She'll never know whether her mind is improved or not, but should she ever, by some mistake, read a great novel, she'll know mighty well that something is happening to her."

 

Books Finished in June 

:: The Lonesome Gods by Louis L’Amour [Review at link. 4 1/2 stars]

:: Down the Long Hills by Louis L’Amour [I enjoyed this one, but not nearly as much as The Lonesome Gods. The Education of a Wandering Man and Bendigo Shafter are next up on my book stack. 3 1/2 stars]

:: Lizzy & Jane by Katherine Reay [I liked this one more than the author’s The Bronte Plot and about as much as Dear Mr. Knightly, and I may have sobbed at the end. Yet another clean modern romance novel. 4 stars for enjoyment]

:: Give Your Child the World by Jaime Martin [Review at link.]

In Progress

[Yes, this list is a little ridiculous.]

:: Flannery O’Connor: The Complete Stories

:: Mystery and Manners

:: The Iliad [I’ve stalled, but I’m determined to finish… sometime this year… I did listen to an hour or two on audio this past month.]

:: Listening to Your Life [I continue to enjoy this daily devotional filled with excerpts from Frederick Buechner’s writings.]

:: Ambleside Online Year O Reading List [I’m reading all the books on this list aloud to Lola this year.]

:: Plutarch’s Lives [I am attempting to slow-read this one with the boys this year. I may chicken out and read the Greenleaf Guides Famous Men of Greece and Famous Men of Rome instead. Or even Augustus Caesar’s World.]

:: Julius Caesar retold by Leon Garfield [I’m working through both story volumes with the boys. We finished Taming of the Shrew this month.]

:: The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy Sayers (re-read) [One of my favorites.]

:: Leisure: The Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper (re-read) [Another favorite.]

:: Beauty for Truth’s Sake by Stratford Caldecott (re-read) [And yet another favorite.]

:: The Law by Frederic Bastiat

:: Rhetoric by Aristotle

:: In Defense of Sanity by G.K. Chesterton

:: Pippi Longstocking [with Lola]

:: The Creed in Slow Motion

:: The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey 

 

The 2016 Reading Challenge Master List

[This list is getting messier and messier. I’ve added books and read books that are not “on the list.” I’ll have to rethink, reprioritize, and reorganize the list this month.]

(Books marked out have been completed.)

Devotional/Faith

Listening to Your Life by Frederick Buechner [in progress]

In Defense of Sanity by G.K. Chesterton [in progress]

The Drama of Scripture: Finding our Place in the Biblical Story by Bartholomew

The Creed in Slow Motion by Reverend Ronald Knox [in progress]

Real-Life Schole Sisters

The Terrible Speed of Mercy: A Spiritual Biography of Flannery O’Connor [I loved this biography of Flannery O’Connor. It is peppered with quotes from O’Connor’s own writings (letters and essays) as well as details about her stories. I feel much more equipped to understand her fiction writing. 4 stars]

Flannery O’Connor: The Complete Stories [in progress]

Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose by Flannery O’Connor [in progress]

Online Schole Sisters

Awakening Wonder: A Classical Guide to Truth, Goodness & Beauty [There are some gems in this book, but I feel as if I had to work so hard to mine them. The last chapter of the book is fantastic, though. 3 1/2 stars]

Leisure: The Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper (re-read) [in progress]

Beauty for Truth’s Sake by Stratford Caldecott (re-read) [in progress]

[Also discussing Flannery O’Connor with this group.]

Symposium at Parnassus (Facebook Group)

Understood Betsy (re-read) [This is such a beautiful classic children’s book, but it is just as important for adults—particularly parents and educators. The author of the story, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, brought Maria Montessori’s teaching methods to the United States and was also named by Eleanor Roosevelt as one of the ten most influential women in the country. 4 1/2 stars]

Mother Carey’s Chickens by Kate Douglas Wiggin

Jack and Jill by Alcott 

Little Women by Alcott

Little Men by Alcott

Rose in Bloom by Alcott

Climbing Parnassus by Tracy Lee Simmons

Norms and Nobility: A Treatise on Education by David Hicks [in progress from 2015]

The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education [This is an excellent primer on a robust and comprehensive traditional classical Christian paradigm, including and beyond the implementation of the Trivium. I’ll be sharing more about this book as I lay out our plans for this coming year. 4 stars]

For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay [Review here. 4 1/2 stars]

A Charlotte Mason Education by Catherine Levison

How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler

Poetic Knowledge James Taylor

Plutarch’s Lives [In progress]

Potato Peel Pie Society (Facebook Group)

[Ambleside Online Year O book list with Lola] [in progress]

Dragonflight [Classic fantasy, and Russ’s favorite author. Fantasy is not my genre, but this one was enjoyable. Definitely some adult situations and not for young children. 3 1/2 stars]

Julius Caesar (re-telling by Leon Garfield)

The Taming of the Shrew (“) [finished re-telling by Leon Garfield]

Henry V (“)

The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy Sayers (re-read) [in progress]

The Green Ember/ The Black Star of Kingston by S.D. Smith

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (July-Sept)

[The Princess Bride (July-Sept) (listed under read-alouds)]

Surprised by Joy by Lewis (Feb)

The Four Loves by Lewis

[Mere Christianity, The Weight of Glory, The Abolition of Man (re-reads)]

Something by Jane Austen

The Once and Future King

[Handmaid’s Tale, Alas Babylon, Ender’s Game, A Wrinkle in Time (re-reads)]

[George MacDonald’s Curdie books (re-reads)]

[Classic Fairy Tales]

[And discussing several other previously read books]

ChocLit Guild

Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy [This was my first Thomas Hardy novel, and I loved it. His descriptions are vivid paintings, and I laughed out loud more times than I could count. His characters sprung to life. This is an early contender for 2016 favorites. I enjoyed the new movie version as well. 4 1/2 stars.]

The Man Who Was Thursday, A Nightmare by Chesterton [Loved it. Review here. 4 1/2 stars]

Wonder [I sobbed my way through this one. Excellent and important. 4 1/2 stars]

Becoming Human by Jean Vanier [This fascinating non-fiction book on the value of every human and the tension between individuality and community was a book club selection this month, paired with the middle grade novel Wonder. I’ll share some thoughts and quotes when I get my copy back. It’s making the book club rounds at the moment. 4 stars]

The Supper of the Lamb (re-read)

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr  [This novel contains beautiful and poetic prose full of exquisite metaphors. The staccato style took some getting used to, however. The sentence rhythm seemed detached, the chapters were extremely short, and the point of view bounced back and forth between characters, location, and time. The story was skillfully woven together, however, and the detail of the experience was remarkable. The characters, in all their variety and humanness, were brought to life. There were few despicable characters, and, while the subject matter was not easy, it was handled gently. 4 stars.]

Blackmoore by Julianne Donaldson [After enjoying Donaldson’s Edenbrooke last month, I had to try her second novel. It’s yet another satisfying light, fun, steamy, clean romance—possibly more complex and intriguing than Edenbrooke. Not great literature, but very dreamy for those of us who enjoy shallow romance novels. Swoon. 4 stars for enjoyment.]

Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

The Book of the Dun Cow by Walter Wangerin Jr. (re-read)

The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and "Women's Work" by Kathleen Norris

Something by L.M. Montgomery

The Great Divorce (or other non-fiction by C.S. Lewis)

Still Life by Louise Penny

Book Detectives

The Family Under the Bridge  (re-read) [This short children’s chapter book was a re-read for me. Our Book Detectives group had a wonderful literary analysis discussion on this one.]

Dominic (re-read) [One of my top favorites. Review and analysis here. 5 stars.]

The Cricket in Times Square (re-read)

Symposium Read-Alouds (with boys)

Shakespeare Stories (Leon Garfield, both volumes -Hamlet and The Tempest) [in progress]

Heidi [I don’t know that I had ever actually read this one all the way through before. The boys LOVED it. Every day they would ask for me to read just one more chapter, and then just one more! In fact, one evening Russ sat down and listened with us and he wasn’t content with the two extra chapters, so he sat next to me after the kids went to bed and I watched a movie and he read the rest of the book, laughing out loud and reading passages to me from time to time. 4 1/2 stars]

The Princess Bride [What a riot!! The introduction got a little long and crazy (and not really appropriate for a younger audience), but we absolutely loved the story part with the author’s “interruptions.” It is very similar to the movie, often word-for-word, but with a little more story and hilarious commentary. The boys and I loved it. (The author’s convoluted conclusion was a little long and crazy as well, and I didn’t read it aloud.) 4 stars for the story inside the story.]

Tuck Everlasting

Classic Fairy Tales (PPPS in December)

Pippi Longstock by Astrid Lindgren (with Lola)

Roman Roads Western Culture Greeks with Levi

[Also discussing with online Schole Sisters]

The Iliad [in progress]

The Odyssey

DRAMA ANDL LYRIC BOOK LIST:
  - Aeschylus (The Oresteia)
  - Sophocles (Oedipus the King and Oedipus at Colonus)
  - Aristophanes (The Frogs and The Clouds)
  - Eurpipides (The Medea and The Trojan Women) included in Roman Roads Reader
  - Sappho (various poems) included in Roman Roads Reader
  - Pindar (collection of Odes) included in Roman Roads Reader
  - Theocritus (Idyls I, VI, VII, and XI) included in Roman Roads Reader
  - Hesiod (Works and Days) included in Roman Roads Reader
  - Quintus of Smyrna (The Fall of Troy) included in Roman Roads Reader
  - Apollonius of Rhodes (The Argonautica) included in Roman Roads Reader

THE HISTORIES BOOK LIST:
  - The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories
  - The Landmark Thucydides
  - Xenophon: The Persian Expedition

THE PHILOSOPHERS BOOK LIST:

  - Plato: Six Greek Dialogues
  - The Basic Works of Aristotle

CC Challenge B short stories [2015-16] (with Levi and McKinnon)

Words Aptly Spoken: Short Stories [I finally finished this collection of 25 classic short stories. It was a great variety.]

God Lives by Hans Christian Andersen
The Teapot by Hans Christian Andersen
The Bet by Anton Chekhov
The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde
Little Girls Wiser than Men by Leo Tolstoy
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi by Rudyard Kipling
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Mansion by Henry Van Dyke
Araby by James Joyce
The Schoolboy’s Story by Charles Dickens
That Spot by Jack London
The Red-Headed League by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Celestial Railroad by Nathaniel Hawthorne
A White Heron by Sarah Orne Jewett
A Man and the Snake by Ambrose Bierce
The Cop and the Anthem by O. Henry
The Necklace by Henri Guy de Maupassant
The Hammer of God by G. K. Chesterton
The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe
The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County by Mark Twain
The Bird on its Journey by Beatrice Harraden
The Nightingale and the Rose by Oscar Wilde
A King in Disguise by Matteo Bandello
The Startling Painting by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Last Lesson by Alphonse Daudet

Classical Conversations Parent Practicum (“Navigating History: The Art of Argumentation”)

Rhetoric by Aristotle [in progress]

The Law by Frederic Bastiat [in progress]

A Student’s Guide to History [This was a very quick and excellent read in anticipation of the Classical Conversations Parent Practicum speaker training that I attended this past month. Our theme is “Navigating History” and I’m very exciting to be speaking in Albany, Oregon in July.]

The Peacemaker by Ken Sande

The Tolkien Project

The Hobbit

Bilbo’s Journey by Joseph Pearce

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

Frodo’s Journey by Joseph Pearce

The Philosophy of Tolkien by Peter Kreeft

Letters From Father Christmas

Life/Parenting

The Young Peacemaker by Ken Sande

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey

Daring Greatly by Brene Brown

Coming Clean by Seth Haines

A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L’Engle

Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Novels

Daddy-Long-Legs [Easy, short, old-fashioned, charming, funny, romantic novel. Brain candy I don’t have to feel guilty about. 4 stars]

The Martian [Gripping, fascinating, hilarious, and stressful sci-fi novel. The most interesting scientific and technical “manual” I’ve ever read, and science/technology/sci-fi are not my things. Lots of language and short, choppy journal-style writing for most of the book but it fit with the story. It is a fantastic tribute to human ingenuity and spirit, with an up-beat can-do attitude. 4 stars]

So Brave, Young, and Handsome by Leif Enger [Enger’s Peace Like a River is in my top ten. I had heard that his second novel wasn’t as good as the first, so I put off reading it. I’m glad I finally sat down to savor it. I loved this one. I really did. Yes, it meandered, but I loved it. I fell in love with the characters. I loved the atmosphere Leif Enger weaves from word to sentence to page to story. Heroic in the quietest sense. The world is indeed a romance. 4 stars]

Heart of Darkness [This wasn’t as hard to read as I thought it was going to be. The prose was exquisite in places. His descriptive writing reminded me of Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd, though this one was not nearly so lovely. The forward movement felt slow, and the characters less appealing (though one was fascinating). 3 1/2 stars]

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie [I love a good mystery. I watched this as a play years and years ago, but it was high time I read this, one of A.G.’s most famous stories. 4 stars]

The Lonesome Gods by Louis L’Amour

These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901 by Nancy Turner

The Thurber Carnival by James Thurber (short stories)

2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke  [This was my “cultural literacy” selection for May, and I watched the classic 1968 Stanley Kubrick film version after finishing the novel. I now feel culturally literate (ha!), but the genre is not my favorite so I’m certain that is one reason I was unable to think deeply about this narrative. I need a group discussion to help me appreciate it. I’d rate this one at roughly 3 stars for enjoyment.]

Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam

The Maytrees by Annie Dillard

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

Mrs. Mike by Freedmans

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky

Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset

Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson

Song of Albion trilogy by Stephen Lawhead

The Cellist of Sarejevo by Steven Galloway

The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper

Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

Emma/Persuasion/Sense and Sensibility

Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner

Roll-Overs from 2015’s List

Strong Poison (continuation of Lord Peter Wimsey series) by Dorothy Sayers

Invisible Man

The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel

Slaughterhouse-Five

Dune [I tried to start it in 2015 and just couldn’t get going. Maybe I’ll try again later this year.] [I found this article at The Guardian: Dune, 50 years on: how a science fiction novel changed the world. I guess it stays on the list…]

The Once and Future King (PPPS)

The Brothers Karamazov

The Brothers K

The Road

Paradise Lost (need to read in plain English novel form)

Frankenstein

Children’s/YA Novels

The Ranger’s Apprentice

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (Young Readers Edition) [A beautiful and true story about a boy from Malawi who builds a windmill. 4 stars.]

The Glass Sentence [This is a hefty 500 page YA fantasy/sci-fi novel and the first in a trilogy. I read the whole thing on vacation, but I wasn’t sucked into the story. I didn’t love it. My fantasy/sci-fi-loving husband didn’t love it either. Interesting premise and world-building, decently written, but not great. 3 stars.]

Auggie & Me: Three Wonder Stories [This is a nice companion book to Wonder. I especially appreciated The Julian Chapter, but it isn’t quite as magical as Wonder. 4 stars.]

Outlaws of Time: The Legend of Sam Miracle by N.D. Wilson [We pre-ordered this one and the 3 boys, my husband, and I all had it read within a week. We loved it. This is an excellent adventurous fantasy with excitement and heart, and now we’re waiting for a sequel. 4 stars.]

The Folk of the Faraway Tree

Half Magic

Ella Enchanted

Popcorn Reads

Greensleeves by Eloise Jarvis McGraw [I don't remember who recommended Greensleeves to me. It was written by Eloise Jarvis McGraw (author of the middle grade novels The Golden Goblet, Mara, Daughter of the Nile, Moccasin Trail, and others) and published in 1968. It is a hefty book at 334 pages. It is the coming of age story of 18-year-old Shannon Lightley. Yeah, an 18-year-old. It is written in first person, and seems light and modern-ish in style, but I was constantly surprised by a fantastic turn of phrase, description or witty comment. And it was way more...smouldering...than I expected it to be. But still clean. The ending was a little more open-ended than I expected (Miss Prim-ish), but not unsatisfying. The book has a decent theme without being preachy. (And it is not at all a "Christian" book as there is not a single mention of God or church.) 4 stars]

Edenbrooke [All that stuff I said about Greensleeves? Yeah. I read this on the first day of vacation, and then I just wanted to re-read it for the rest of the week. I skimmed/re-read it the following week and then I bought my own copy (the first one was a library copy). And then I ordered Blackmoore by the same author to read next (listed under ChocLit Guild reads). Super duper mushy clean romantic story. More romantic than Greensleeves, but maybe more cheesy. Definitely a more satisfying ending. Whatever. This is the kind of book I’d read all day every day if I didn’t care about my brain and my family. 4 stars.]

(Blackmoore) [listed under ChocLit Guild reads]

The Black Opal [Decent but somewhat forgettable. The author is a long-time mystery and romance writer, but I didn’t find this book particularly mysterious or romantic. Meh. I may try another one. 3 stars.]

Dear Mr. Knightly by Katherine Reay [This is a modern literature-infused remake of Daddy-Long-Legs, which was the first book I read this year (a re-read for me, and listed under “novels” since it was published in 1912). Not realistic (who writes letters like that?), not deep literature, but yet another light, entertaining, clean, and quite enjoyable romance novel! 4 stars]

The Bronte Plot by Katherine Reay [I enjoyed Dear Mr. Knightley a little more, but this novel shows a bit more maturity. Not great literature, but I enjoy a light, cheesy, modern romance novel that references classical literature and is clean to boot. 4 stars for enjoyment.]

Lizzy and Jane by Katherine Reay [ I liked this one more than the author’s Bronte Plot and about as much as Dear Mr. Knightly, and I may have sobbed at the end. Yet another clean modern romance novel. 4 stars for enjoyment]

 

CC Challenge A Reading List [2016-17] (with Luke)

[The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; Carry On, Mr. Bowditch; The Magician’s Nephew; Number the Stars; Amos Fortune, Free Man]

The Secret Garden

[The Door in the Wall; A Gathering of Days; Crispin: The Cross of Lead; The Bronze Bow]

CC Challenge I Reading List [2016-17] (with Levi and McKinnon)

Billy Bud, Sailor

The Scarlet Letter

The Red Badge of Courage

The Gold-Bug and Other Tales (Poe)

Through the Gates of Splendor (Elisabeth Elliot)

Born Again (Chuck Colson)

Starship Troopers

Up from Slavery (Booker T. Washington)

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (re-read)

Self-Reliance Ralph W. Emerson

Walden (Henry David Thoreau)

The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway)

Tom Sawyer

The Call of the Wild

Johnny Tremain

The Sign of the Beaver (re-read)

Harvey (Mary Chase)

The Witch of Blackbird Pond

An Old-Fashioned Girl

Whatever Happened to Penny Candy?

The Money Mystery

The Taming of the Shrew (re-read)

I, Isaac, Take Thee, Rebekah

(American Documents)

Give Your Child the World

Jamie has done it! Her book is finally in my hands, and it’s beautiful.

Jaime Martin of Simple Homeschool has given us guidebook—a way to tour the world with our children, to savor the flavors and explore the riches of the people and places on earth, without leaving our couches! Give Your Child the World: Raising Globally Minded Kids One Book at a Time belongs on the shelf with other excellent book lists such as Honey for a Child’s Heart.

In Part I, Jaime shares with us the story of her own global family, coming together from four different continents. She gives us many simple but effective ways to invite the world into our own homes. And she challenges us to embrace a good story as a powerful way to enlarge our hearts and minds.

In a lengthy Part II, Jaime shares a feast of stories. The generous book list is conveniently sorted by region (Multicultural, Africa, Europe, Asia, Middle East, North America, Latin America, and finally Australia, Oceania, and the Polar Regions). Within the regional lists, she further sorts the books into target age ranges (4-6, 6-8, 8-10, and 10-12). A quick review accompanies each book selection.

The Index section is particularly helpful with an index each for authors, country/region, and titles, as well as a historical index with books sorted chronologically!

As I perused the book lists, I spied many favorite titles but also many that are new to me. I look forward to discovering new family favorites.

Jaime and Sarah Mackenzie of Read-Aloud Revival have teamed up to create the Read the World Summer Book Club for those of us interested in joining others on the journey. Kids and parents are encouraged to read one book a week, one region a week. The book club is in its second week, so don’t delay! Enjoy weekly themed recipes and videos at Simple Homeschool and enter to win prizes!

The Lonesome Gods [Or, I’m Naming My Next Son Johannes]

The Lonesome Gods. It moved me. It stirred my soul. I’d pause and clasp the book to my heart and sigh. I wanted to stand up and shout. And bow down with respect.

Today, Father’s Day, seems like the perfect day to talk about this book because one of the main themes of the story is the legacy that a father leaves his son.

Louis L’Amour.

Whenever I heard that name, the first thought that came to my mind was “cliche Western.” I had never read a Louis L’Amour book until this month.

I had no idea.

I had no idea that Louis L’Amour was himself a wandering man who loved books and stories. This is a man who lived. From the biography at the end of this printed edition:

Mr. L’Amour left home at the age of fifteen and enjoyed a wide variety of jobs, including seaman, lumberjack, elephant handler, skinner of dead cattle, miner, and an officer in the transportation corps during World War II. During his “yondering” days he also circled the world on a freighter, sailed a dhow on the Red Sea, was shipwrecked in the West Indies, and stranded in the Mojave Desert. He won fifty-one of fifty-nine fights as a professional boxer and worked as a journalist and lecturer. He was a voracious reader and collector of rare books. His personal library contained 17,000 volumes.

I had no idea.

In his memoir, Education of a Wandering Man, L’Amour wrote:

We are, finally, all wanderers in search of knowledge. Most of us hold the dream of becoming something better than we are, something larger, richer, in some way more important to the world and ourselves. Too often, the way taken is the wrong way, with too much emphasis on what we want to have, rather than what we wish to become.

Guess which book just sailed straight to the top of my to-read list.

He said,

I think of myself in the oral tradition—as a troubadour, a village taleteller, the man in the shadows of the campfire. That’s the way I’d like to be remembered—as a storyteller. A good storyteller.

Indeed. Let me tell you: I inhaled The Lonesome Gods.

“It was a story to make a boy lean forward.” [as Leif Enger would say, So Brave, Young, and Handsome]

And, indeed, my twelve-year-old son inhaled all 545 pages of it in one day, as did my husband over a couple days.

It has character. It has wisdom. It has action.

G.K. Chesterton once wrote,

The thing which keeps life romantic and full of fiery possibilities is the existence of these great plain limitations which force all of us to meet the things we do not like or do not expect… To be in a romance is to be in uncongenial surroundings. To be born into this earth is to be born into uncongenial surroundings, hence to be born into a romance.

The Lonesome Gods is a romance in the the most beautiful and broad sense. It is about a very young boy, born into uncongenial surroundings. He and his father are heading west at the beginning of the story. From there, the boy is met with great plain limitations which force him to meet challenges.

I have a list of my favorite men in literature—fathers in particular. Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, Jeremiah Land in Peace Like a River, John Ames in Gilead, Charles Moody in Little Britches. When I finished reading Far from the Madding Crowd earlier this year, I wanted three more sons so I could name them Gabriel, Oak, and Sheppard.

Well, now I need another son, and I’ll name him Johannes.

Throughout the story, Johannes embodies his father’s legacy. His father said,

“Much of what I say may be nonsense, but a few things I have learned, and the most important is that he who ceases to learn is already a half-dead man. And do not be like an oyster who rests on the sea bottom waiting for the good things to come by. Search for them, find them.”

“But read. There are books here, read them, all of them. Find others. Many a man has done well with no more of an education than what he can have by reading.”

And later,

There was a time when a man spoke very impatiently to my father. He had seen a copy of the Iliad lying on the table. “You are reading this? he asked.

“I have read it many times. Now I read it to my son.”

“But he is too young!” The man protested, almost angry.

“Is he? Who is to say? How young is too young to begin to discover the power and beauty of words? Perhaps he will not understand, but there is a clash of shields and a call to trumpets in those lines. One cannot begin too young nor linger too long with learning.”

More, more beautiful words and then,

“Men need stories to lead them to create, to build, to conquer, even to survive, and without them the human race would have vanished long ago. Men strive for peace, but it is their enemies that give them strength, and I think if man no longer had enemies, he would have to invent them, for his strength only grows from struggle.”

Johannes grows strong in stature and endurance, in intelligence, in wisdom, and humility. His father also had advised him,

“These are rough boys. If they push or shove you, don’t talk, don’t call names, don’t argue. Hit them first, and hard.”

“I don’t want a fight, but if we get one, we’ve got to win it or die.”

[Another character about his father] “Just knowin’ how to shoot is one thing, knowing when to shoot is something else again, an’ your pa has savvy.”

This story is not only about book-learning.

“The farmer, the hunter, or the deep-sea fisherman always had his eyes upon the heavens. He lived with their vagaries as much as with the trails he followed or the furrows he plowed. He could read the weather in the clouds, locate distant islands or lagoons by their appearance. He knew the flight of birds and which lived upon land and which upon the sea. Long before there was a compass, he understood how to locate the sun on an overcast day. He who sits at a desk and tries to understand by logic often loses touch with the realities… Remember this: the poor peasant, the hunter, or the fisherman may have knowledge that scholars are struggling to learn.”

More from his school teacher:

“All education is self-education. A teacher is only a guide, to point out the way, and no school, no matter how excellent, can give you an education. What you receive is like the outlines in a child’s coloring book. You must fill in the colors yourself. I hope, in these classes, to give you an idea of where you came from, how you got here, and what has been said about it.”

And his adopted mother [the strength of her character is praise-worthy] :

“Neither age nor size makes a man, Johannes. It is willingness to accept responsibility.”

I just want to cry just thinking about it.

Learn. Read. Live life. Admire artistry. Be humble. Be strong. Be quick. Listen more than you talk. Be wise and discerning. Pay attention to your surroundings. Know nature. Accept responsibility.

Do not be afraid.

Sob.

 

 

Okay, I’m finished swooning.

Luke is my son who loves wilderness survival-themed books. His other favorites include My Side of the Mountain, Hatchet (and other Paulsen books), the Little Britches series, Where the Red Fern Grows, and The Sign of the Beaver. The Lonesome Gods was a perfect book to transition him from children’s books to grown-up books now that he is twelve. I’m adding more L’Amour books to our shelves this year.

For the Children’s Sake

Stacks of books tower on every flat surface (and some not-so-flat surfaces) of my house. I’ve been allowing my imagination to wander lately, and it has designed a beautiful library/meeting hall to be built in the field in front of my house. “Imagination” is the key word here, but if I don’t do something soon it will be either my family or the books—I don’t think there’s room for both. [wry grin]

One of these towering stacks is the “education and culture” stack (not to be confused with the culture and educational philosophy shelf).

Some books in this towering stack are more recent favorites: The Core, The Question, and The Conversation by Leigh Bortins; Beauty for Truth’s Sake and Beauty in the Word by Stratford Caldecott; Teaching from Rest: A Homeschooler’s Guide to Unshakable Peace by Sarah Mackenzie; and Leisure, the Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper.

Some are important books that require more intelligence than I currently possess in order to finish: Norms and Nobility by David Hicks and Climbing Parnassus by Tracy Lee Simmons. [Clearly I’m delusional about when that intelligence will manifest itself because I haven’t shelved them yet.]

Some are books I’ve finished in the past few months and whose riches I’m still digesting: Awakening Wonder: A Classical Guide to Truth, Goodness & Beauty by Stephen R. Turley, PhD (a good but dense read) and The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education by Ravi Jain (an excellent must-read, even though it is over my head in parts).

[We won’t even talk about the books still on my wish list!]

After reading The Liberal Arts Tradition in particular, I had so many thoughts swirling in my brain and I began synthesizing some ideas to share in blog posts. My real hope was to somehow synthesize all of the above books into something resembling a cohesive educational philosophy complete with derivative practices.

Hahahaha!

So what does Heidi do when she is overwhelmed by a task in front of her? [Other than binge on chocolate and Netflix?] She watches multiple educational videos and series. She attends an educational retreat.

She starts another book. Or two.

Instead of buying more books, I looked at my educational philosophy shelf and grabbed two books I hadn’t read in forever.

First up: A Charlotte Mason Education by Catherine Levison. This one is completely manageable. Less than 100 pages. A brief introduction to Charlotte Mason. Very brief chapters covering all the subjects with practical how-to advice. A few lists and graphs (yay for lists and graphs!). In summary: brief and practical.

On a roll, I grabbed the second book: For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay.

I’d like to have a little chat with the younger me who first read the book some years ago.

Why didn’t you allow these beautiful words and ideas to change your life?!

[Okay, I know why: I was overwhelmed. There just wasn’t enough of me to go around. My main goal was to keep everyone alive. But, still.]

I was convicted with every word. Convicted that I could spend a profitable 10 years just reading and re-reading the books I already own without buying another single book. Convicted that it doesn't matter how many books I read if they don't change me. Convicted that I need to choose a few beautiful books to re-read often. Convicted that I have failed myself and my children in setting good habits that would make doing the right things so. much. easier. for all of us because we could do all the little things without thinking and without effort and save our thinking and effort for the big things.

So I had a "chat" with my kids, which was probably the wrong thing (ha!), apologizing to them for my own poor habits and apologizing for failing to make their lives easier, and explaining that we are all under authority to do the right thing.

It's really difficult to turn a large passenger ship around. Especially when the captain has shockingly poor habits. Sigh.

But good stuff, friends. Good and beautiful stuff in this one.

This is not just a homeschooling book. It is not even just a book about education.

It is a book about these beautiful humans who inhabit our homes and how we should treat them. How we can respect them as persons and work to enlarge their lives.

From the Introduction:

This book…is not a specific guide to one particular plan. Education is an adventure that has to do with central themes, not the particular packages a given generation puts them into. It’s about people, children, life, reality!

In the first chapter, What Is Education?, the author introduces the reader to Charlotte Mason and her world. 

In the lengthy second chapter, the reader learns that “Children Are Born Persons.”

At first glance, this idea does not seem revolutionary to us, but a deeper look at this idea reveals the truth.

Look well at the child on your knee. In whatever condition you find him, look with reverence. We can only love and serve him and be his friend. We cannot own him. He is not ours… Respect him. Do not see him as something to prune, form, or mold. This is an individual who thinks, acts, and feels. He is a separate human being whose strength lies in who he is, not in who he will become.

We are told to place a feast of ideas and experiences in front of a child and then get out of the way.

Allow the child to have an interior life that you don’t meddle in. Let the Holy Spirit and the child do what they will with what he has seen and heard.

Charlotte Mason highly valued a child’s time and opportunity to play. Encourage play, give a child time and materials and remove other distractions and pressures, but do not organize play.

Charlotte Mason fed children with Living Ideas from outside of those children’s world. Read beautifully written biographies, stories of other cultures, fables, stories about animals, literature. Read slowly. Have a child narrate back what he has heard. Don’t test the child. Allow her to choose the details that she remembers. Allow a child to learn as his own speed.

The third chapter covers the topic of Authority and Freedom.

This is the chapter that hit me the hardest.

Charlotte Mason exhorts us to train a child in good habits so that right behavior becomes easy and the student’s efforts and energy can be used for greater challenges.

What I truly loved about the perspective here is that it is so full of grace. It is not a rigid system of endless dos and don’ts from an authoritative perspective, but an understanding that we are all under authority to do the right thing and that we must first understand the child’s needs. We must give children “freedom within known limits, both physically and morally.” We must not be aggressive. We as parents must “exercise great self-restraint” and not place too many limits or pile on expectations.

We must show that we are mature enough to stick to the lines which are right, and that we don’t merely boss the child about for our convenience.

In this lengthy chapter, I was reminded continuously of this quote by G.K. Chesterton: “The more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.”

Chapter four introduces us to Charlotte Mason’s educational principles.

[You can read them here.]

Teach the skills for their own sake.
Introduce the child to a wide curriculum of living books.
Keep teaching time short enough so that his natural hunger for “real” life can be satisfied.

Macaulay focuses on Charlotte Mason’s motto: “Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life.”

Atmosphere can be cultivated at home and at school.

Students can learn the discipline of attention and concentration, truthfulness, self-control, and unselfishness. Parents and teachers can provide structure and form.

Parents and teachers can give students access to the best sources.

“Let the children at the best of life!” is Charlotte Mason’s challenge to us. Life includes not only living experiences, but also the best that mankind has produced in art, books, music, ideas, and many more areas.

We don’t have to chart exactly what a child has “learned” from any of these sources to make it worthwhile using them. This is a different way of thinking about learning. Our job is to give the best nourishment regularly. The child takes what is appropriate to him at that time.

We are also encouraged to allow students to do real work, take on real responsibility, and spend time in creative pursuits.

Chapter five delves into the principle “education is a science of relationships.”

We must take steps to provide a diet which opens doors for each child to build a relationship with God, other persons, and the universe. If it sounds broad, it is broad!

Knowledge is divided into three categories: knowledge of God, knowledge of man, and knowledge of the universe.

These divisions correspond well to the three categories of philosophy outlined in The Liberal Arts Tradition: divine philosophy, moral philosophy, and natural philosophy.

In this chapter (again, lengthy), Macaulay covers the “subjects” of theology, history, literature, morals and citizenship, composition, languages, art, music, science, geography, mathematics, physical development, and handicrafts.

The Word of God is like fertile seed you drop into the soil. The child does not take in everything that is there. He thinks about some aspect of it.

“Why do you study, or do math, art, etc.?” should be swiftly answered by “Because it is part of the whole which God has created.”

Math does relate to the whole of truth; it has its place. It is like art, music, horticulture, or cooking: the “Christian-ness” of it lies in itself. We are secure in God’s truth, which is a framework into which we can fit all the parts of reality.

Having given the basis for the knowledge, plus a place for the telling of ideas or discussion, please allow each child to live his own private life. We tend to crash in where angels fear to tread. We want to push along the work that belongs to the Holy Spirit. Let the child do his own living—please!

The life of education has to include the whole of our humanness. We need to relate as persons to the God who is there, to be nourished with good ideas through books, art, music, history, literature, etc. We need to relate to other persons, to know and be known. We need the beauty of nature, and we are made to respond creatively in speech, music, through art, etc. We need to know the limits of law, and yet the freedom of our separate choices.

The book closes with a brief sixth chapter which introduces Charlotte Mason’s motto “I am, I can, I ought, I will.”

I am made in the image of God and made to have a relationship with Him. I can act with confidence. I ought to do what is right (not just what I want). I will choose what is right under all circumstances.

And God’s grace is available to me when I fail.

The motto, “I am, I can, I ought, I will” makes a circle, a perimeter, inside of which my human life may be lived with joy and fullness. There is song, lightness, spontaneity. There is the possibility of attaining height proper to one’s self.

Lovely.

Friends, I highly recommend this book, whether you are homeschooling or using other schooling methods, whether your children are still young or growing older.

 

So now I have so many beautiful ideas to synthesize that I may die trying. But stay tuned for more to come…

Reading Challenge 2016 ~ May

My ChocLit Guild book club met in this darling Small Town, USA library this past week to discuss All the Light We Cannot See. I love my book club friends and family. I love meeting together to discuss books over treats. I love small-town libraries. Triple win.

 

Books Finished in May 

:: 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke [This was my “cultural literacy” selection for May, and I watched the classic 1968 Stanley Kubrick film version after finishing the novel. I now feel culturally literate (ha!), but the genre is not my favorite so I’m certain that is one reason I was unable to think deeply about this narrative. I need a group discussion to help me appreciate it. I’d rate this one at roughly 3 stars for enjoyment.] 

:: The Bronte Plot by Katherine Reay [I enjoyed Dear Mr. Knightley a little more, but this novel shows a bit more maturity. Not great literature, but I enjoy a light, cheesy, modern romance novel that references classical literature and is clean to boot. 4 stars for enjoyment.]

:: A Charlotte Mason Education by Catherine Levison [I’ll review this book in another post.]

:: For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay [I’ll post a full review tomorrow.]

:: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr [This novel contains beautiful and poetic prose full of exquisite metaphors. The staccato style took some getting used to, however. The sentence rhythm seemed detached, the chapters were extremely short, and the point of view bounced back and forth between characters, location, and time. The story was skillfully woven together, however, and the detail of the experience was remarkable. The characters, in all their variety and humanness, were brought to life. There were few despicable characters, and, while the subject matter was not easy, it was handled gently. 4 stars.]

:: The Great Mouse Detective (Basil of Baker Street) by Eve Titus [This is a charming classic beginner chapter book by the author of the excellent Anatole picture books. More review to come. 4 1/2 stars] 

In Progress

[Yes, this list is a little ridiculous.]

:: Flannery O’Connor: The Complete Stories [I read The River this month.]

:: Mystery and Manners [I read a couple more essays this month.]

:: The Iliad [I’ve stalled, but I’m determined to finish… sometime this year… ]

:: Listening to Your Life [I continue to enjoy this daily devotional filled with excerpts from Frederick Buechner’s writings.]

:: Ambleside Online Year O Reading List [I’m reading all the books on this list aloud to Lola this year.]

:: Plutarch’s Lives [I am attempting to slow-read this one with the boys this year. I may chicken out and read the Greenleaf Guides Famous Men of Greece and Famous Men of Rome instead. Or even Augustus Caesar’s World.]

:: Julius Caesar retold by Leon Garfield [I’m working through both story volumes with the boys this year.]

:: The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy Sayers (re-read) [One of my favorites.]

:: Leisure: The Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper (re-read) [Another favorite.]

:: Beauty for Truth’s Sake by Stratford Caldecott (re-read) [And yet another favorite.]

:: The Law by Frederic Bastiat

:: Rhetoric by Aristotle

:: In Defense of Sanity by G.K. Chesterton

:: Pippi Longstocking [with Lola]

:: The Creed in Slow Motion

 

 

The 2016 Reading Challenge Master List

(I finally added all the books on my list. Well, there is not actually an “end” to the books on my list, but these are the main selections on my mind at the moment. There is no way I will read even half of these books this year and I’m sure to add a few as the months go on, but I’ll use this list for reference when I’m picking up the next book to read. I don’t really like how they are organized, but this will have to do at the moment.) 

(Books marked out have been completed.)

Devotional/Faith

Listening to Your Life by Frederick Buechner [in progress]

In Defense of Sanity by G.K. Chesterton [in progress]

The Drama of Scripture: Finding our Place in the Biblical Story by Bartholomew

The Creed in Slow Motion by Reverend Ronald Knox [in progress]

Real-Life Schole Sisters

The Terrible Speed of Mercy: A Spiritual Biography of Flannery O’Connor [I loved this biography of Flannery O’Connor. It is peppered with quotes from O’Connor’s own writings (letters and essays) as well as details about her stories. I feel much more equipped to understand her fiction writing. 4 stars]

Flannery O’Connor: The Complete Stories [in progress]

Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose by Flannery O’Connor [in progress]

Online Schole Sisters

Awakening Wonder: A Classical Guide to Truth, Goodness & Beauty [There are some gems in this book, but I feel as if I had to work so hard to mine them. The last chapter of the book is fantastic, though. 3 1/2 stars]

Leisure: The Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper (re-read) [in progress]

Beauty for Truth’s Sake by Stratford Caldecott (re-read) [in progress]

[Also discussing Flannery O’Connor with this group.]

Symposium at Parnassus (Facebook Group)

Understood Betsy (re-read) [This is such a beautiful classic children’s book, but it is just as important for adults—particularly parents and educators. The author of the story, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, brought Maria Montessori’s teaching methods to the United States and was also named by Eleanor Roosevelt as one of the ten most influential women in the country. 4 1/2 stars]

Mother Carey’s Chickens by Kate Douglas Wiggin

Jack and Jill by Alcott 

Little Women by Alcott

Little Men by Alcott

Rose in Bloom by Alcott

Climbing Parnassus by Tracy Lee Simmons

Norms and Nobility: A Treatise on Education by David Hicks [in progress from 2015]

The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education [This is an excellent primer on a robust and comprehensive traditional classical Christian paradigm, including and beyond the implementation of the Trivium. I’ll be sharing more about this book as I lay out our plans for this coming year. 4 stars]

For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay (re-read)

A Charlotte Mason Education by Catherine Levison

How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler

Poetic Knowledge James Taylor

Plutarch’s Lives [In progress]

Potato Peel Pie Society (Facebook Group)

[Ambleside Online Year O book list with Lola] [in progress]

Dragonflight [Classic fantasy, and Russ’s favorite author. Fantasy is not my genre, but this one was enjoyable. Definitely some adult situations and not for young children. 3 1/2 stars]

Julius Caesar (re-telling by Leon Garfield) [In progress]

The Taming of the Shrew (“)

Henry V (“)

The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy Sayers (re-read) [in progress]

The Green Ember/ The Black Star of Kingston by S.D. Smith

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (July-Sept)

[The Princess Bride (July-Sept) (listed under read-alouds)]

The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy Sayers (re-read) (Feb)

Surprised by Joy by Lewis (Feb)

The Four Loves by Lewis

[Mere Christianity, The Weight of Glory, The Abolition of Man (re-reads)]

Something by Jane Austen

The Once and Future King

[Handmaid’s Tale, Alas Babylon, Ender’s Game, A Wrinkle in Time (re-reads)]

[George MacDonald’s Curdie books (re-reads)]

[Classic Fairy Tales]

[And discussing several other previously read books]

ChocLit Guild

Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy [This was my first Thomas Hardy novel, and I loved it. His descriptions are vivid paintings, and I laughed out loud more times than I could count. His characters sprung to life. This is an early contender for 2016 favorites. I enjoyed the new movie version as well. 4 1/2 stars.]

The Man Who Was Thursday, A Nightmare by Chesterton [Loved it. Review here. 4 1/2 stars]

Wonder [I sobbed my way through this one. Excellent and important. 4 1/2 stars]

Becoming Human by Jean Vanier [This fascinating non-fiction book on the value of every human and the tension between individuality and community was a book club selection this month, paired with the middle grade novel Wonder. I’ll share some thoughts and quotes when I get my copy back. It’s making the book club rounds at the moment. 4 stars]

The Supper of the Lamb (re-read)

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr  [This novel contains beautiful and poetic prose full of exquisite metaphors. The staccato style took some getting used to, however. The sentence rhythm seemed detached, the chapters were extremely short, and the point of view bounced back and forth between characters, location, and time. The story was skillfully woven together, however, and the detail of the experience was remarkable. The characters, in all their variety and humanness, were brought to life. There were few despicable characters, and, while the subject matter was not easy, it was handled gently. 4 stars.]

Blackmoore by Julianne Donaldson [After enjoying Donaldson’s Edenbrooke last month, I had to try her second novel. It’s yet another satisfying light, fun, steamy, clean romance—possibly more complex and intriguing than Edenbrooke. Not great literature, but very dreamy for those of us who enjoy shallow romance novels. Swoon. 4 stars for enjoyment.]

Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

The Book of the Dun Cow by Walter Wangerin Jr. (re-read)

The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and "Women's Work" by Kathleen Norris

Something by L.M. Montgomery

The Great Divorce (or other non-fiction by C.S. Lewis)

Still Life by Louise Penny

Book Detectives

The Family Under the Bridge  (re-read) [This short children’s chapter book was a re-read for me. Our Book Detectives group had a wonderful literary analysis discussion on this one.]

Dominic (re-read) [One of my top favorites. Review and analysis here. 5 stars.]

The Cricket in Times Square (re-read)

Symposium Read-Alouds (with boys)

Shakespeare Stories (Leon Garfield, both volumes -Hamlet and The Tempest) [in progress]

Heidi [I don’t know that I had ever actually read this one all the way through before. The boys LOVED it. Every day they would ask for me to read just one more chapter, and then just one more! In fact, one evening Russ sat down and listened with us and he wasn’t content with the two extra chapters, so he sat next to me after the kids went to bed and I watched a movie and he read the rest of the book, laughing out loud and reading passages to me from time to time. 4 1/2 stars]

The Princess Bride [What a riot!! The introduction got a little long and crazy (and not really appropriate for a younger audience), but we absolutely loved the story part with the author’s “interruptions.” It is very similar to the movie, often word-for-word, but with a little more story and hilarious commentary. The boys and I loved it. (The author’s convoluted conclusion was a little long and crazy as well, and I didn’t read it aloud.) 4 stars for the story inside the story.]

Tuck Everlasting

Classic Fairy Tales (PPPS in December)

Pippi Longstock by Astrid Lindgren (with Lola)

Roman Roads Western Culture Greeks with Levi

[Also discussing with online Schole Sisters]

The Iliad [in progress]

The Odyssey

DRAMA ANDL LYRIC BOOK LIST:
  - Aeschylus (The Oresteia)
  - Sophocles (Oedipus the King and Oedipus at Colonus)
  - Aristophanes (The Frogs and The Clouds)
  - Eurpipides (The Medea and The Trojan Women) included in Roman Roads Reader
  - Sappho (various poems) included in Roman Roads Reader
  - Pindar (collection of Odes) included in Roman Roads Reader
  - Theocritus (Idyls I, VI, VII, and XI) included in Roman Roads Reader
  - Hesiod (Works and Days) included in Roman Roads Reader
  - Quintus of Smyrna (The Fall of Troy) included in Roman Roads Reader
  - Apollonius of Rhodes (The Argonautica) included in Roman Roads Reader

THE HISTORIES BOOK LIST:
  - The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories
  - The Landmark Thucydides
  - Xenophon: The Persian Expedition

THE PHILOSOPHERS BOOK LIST:

  - Plato: Six Greek Dialogues
  - The Basic Works of Aristotle

CC Challenge B short stories [2015-16] (with Levi and McKinnon)

Words Aptly Spoken: Short Stories [I finally finished this collection of 25 classic short stories. It was a great variety.]

God Lives by Hans Christian Andersen
The Teapot by Hans Christian Andersen
The Bet by Anton Chekhov
The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde
Little Girls Wiser than Men by Leo Tolstoy
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi by Rudyard Kipling
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Mansion by Henry Van Dyke
Araby by James Joyce
The Schoolboy’s Story by Charles Dickens
That Spot by Jack London
The Red-Headed League by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Celestial Railroad by Nathaniel Hawthorne
A White Heron by Sarah Orne Jewett
A Man and the Snake by Ambrose Bierce
The Cop and the Anthem by O. Henry
The Necklace by Henri Guy de Maupassant
The Hammer of God by G. K. Chesterton
The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe
The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County by Mark Twain
The Bird on its Journey by Beatrice Harraden
The Nightingale and the Rose by Oscar Wilde
A King in Disguise by Matteo Bandello
The Startling Painting by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Last Lesson by Alphonse Daudet

Classical Conversations Parent Practicum (“Navigating History: The Art of Argumentation”)

Rhetoric by Aristotle [in progress]

The Law by Frederic Bastiat [in progress]

A Student’s Guide to History [This was a very quick and excellent read in anticipation of the Classical Conversations Parent Practicum speaker training that I attended this past month. Our theme is “Navigating History” and I’m very exciting to be speaking in Albany, Oregon in July.]

The Peacemaker by Ken Sande

The Tolkien Project

The Hobbit

Bilbo’s Journey by Joseph Pearce

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

Frodo’s Journey by Joseph Pearce

The Philosophy of Tolkien by Peter Kreeft

Letters From Father Christmas

Life/Parenting

The Young Peacemaker by Ken Sande

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey

Daring Greatly by Brene Brown

Coming Clean by Seth Haines

A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L’Engle

Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Novels

Daddy-Long-Legs [Easy, short, old-fashioned, charming, funny, romantic novel. Brain candy I don’t have to feel guilty about. 4 stars]

The Martian [Gripping, fascinating, hilarious, and stressful sci-fi novel. The most interesting scientific and technical “manual” I’ve ever read, and science/technology/sci-fi are not my things. Lots of language and short, choppy journal-style writing for most of the book but it fit with the story. It is a fantastic tribute to human ingenuity and spirit, with an up-beat can-do attitude. 4 stars]

So Brave, Young, and Handsome by Leif Enger [Enger’s Peace Like a River is in my top ten. I had heard that his second novel wasn’t as good as the first, so I put off reading it. I’m glad I finally sat down to savor it. I loved this one. I really did. Yes, it meandered, but I loved it. I fell in love with the characters. I loved the atmosphere Leif Enger weaves from word to sentence to page to story. Heroic in the quietest sense. The world is indeed a romance. 4 stars]

Heart of Darkness [This wasn’t as hard to read as I thought it was going to be. The prose was exquisite in places. His descriptive writing reminded me of Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd, though this one was not nearly so lovely. The forward movement felt slow, and the characters less appealing (though one was fascinating). 3 1/2 stars]

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie [I love a good mystery. I watched this as a play years and years ago, but it was high time I read this, one of A.G.’s most famous stories. 4 stars]

The Lonesome Gods by Louis L’Amour

These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901 by Nancy Turner

The Thurber Carnival by James Thurber (short stories)

2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke  [This was my “cultural literacy” selection for May, and I watched the classic 1968 Stanley Kubrick film version after finishing the novel. I now feel culturally literate (ha!), but the genre is not my favorite so I’m certain that is one reason I was unable to think deeply about this narrative. I need a group discussion to help me appreciate it. I’d rate this one at roughly 3 stars for enjoyment.]

Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam

The Maytrees by Annie Dillard

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

Mrs. Mike by Freedmans

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky

Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset

Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson

Song of Albion trilogy by Stephen Lawhead

The Cellist of Sarejevo by Steven Galloway

The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper

Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

Emma/Persuasion/Sense and Sensibility

Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner

Roll-Overs from 2015’s List

Strong Poison (continuation of Lord Peter Wimsey series) by Dorothy Sayers

Invisible Man

The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel

Slaughterhouse-Five

Dune [I tried to start it in 2015 and just couldn’t get going. Maybe I’ll try again later this year.] [I found this article at The Guardian: Dune, 50 years on: how a science fiction novel changed the world. I guess it stays on the list…]

The Once and Future King (PPPS)

The Brothers Karamazov

The Brothers K

The Road

Paradise Lost (need to read in plain English novel form)

Frankenstein

Children’s/YA Novels

The Ranger’s Apprentice

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (Young Readers Edition) [A beautiful and true story about a boy from Malawi who builds a windmill. 4 stars.]

The Glass Sentence [This is a hefty 500 page YA fantasy/sci-fi novel and the first in a trilogy. I read the whole thing on vacation, but I wasn’t sucked into the story. I didn’t love it. My fantasy/sci-fi-loving husband didn’t love it either. Interesting premise and world-building, decently written, but not great. 3 stars.]

Auggie & Me: Three Wonder Stories [This is a nice companion book to Wonder. I especially appreciated The Julian Chapter, but it isn’t quite as magical as Wonder. 4 stars.]

Outlaws of Time: The Legend of Sam Miracle by N.D. Wilson [We pre-ordered this one and the 3 boys, my husband, and I all had it read within a week. We loved it. This is an excellent adventurous fantasy with excitement and heart, and now we’re waiting for a sequel. 4 stars.]

The Folk of the Faraway Tree

Half Magic

Ella Enchanted

Popcorn Reads

Greensleeves by Eloise Jarvis McGraw [I don't remember who recommended Greensleeves to me. It was written by Eloise Jarvis McGraw (author of the middle grade novels The Golden Goblet, Mara, Daughter of the Nile, Moccasin Trail, and others) and published in 1968. It is a hefty book at 334 pages. It is the coming of age story of 18-year-old Shannon Lightley. Yeah, an 18-year-old. It is written in first person, and seems light and modern-ish in style, but I was constantly surprised by a fantastic turn of phrase, description or witty comment. And it was way more...smouldering...than I expected it to be. But still clean. The ending was a little more open-ended than I expected (Miss Prim-ish), but not unsatisfying. The book has a decent theme without being preachy. (And it is not at all a "Christian" book as there is not a single mention of God or church.) 4 stars]

Edenbrooke [All that stuff I said about Greensleeves? Yeah. I read this on the first day of vacation, and then I just wanted to re-read it for the rest of the week. I skimmed/re-read it the following week and then I bought my own copy (the first one was a library copy). And then I ordered Blackmoore by the same author to read next (listed under ChocLit Guild reads). Super duper mushy clean romantic story. More romantic than Greensleeves, but maybe more cheesy. Definitely a more satisfying ending. Whatever. This is the kind of book I’d read all day every day if I didn’t care about my brain and my family. 4 stars.]

(Blackmoore) [listed under ChocLit Guild reads]

The Black Opal [Decent but somewhat forgettable. The author is a long-time mystery and romance writer, but I didn’t find this book particularly mysterious or romantic. Meh. I may try another one. 3 stars.]

Dear Mr. Knightly by Katherine Reay [This is a modern literature-infused remake of Daddy-Long-Legs, which was the first book I read this year (a re-read for me, and listed under “novels” since it was published in 1912). Not realistic (who writes letters like that?), not deep literature, but yet another light, entertaining, clean, and quite enjoyable romance novel! 4 stars]

The Bronte Plot by Katherine Reay [I enjoyed Dear Mr. Knightley a little more, but this novel shows a bit more maturity. Not great literature, but I enjoy a light, cheesy, modern romance novel that references classical literature and is clean to boot. 4 stars for enjoyment.]

Lizzy and Jane by Katherine Reay 

 

CC Challenge A Reading List [2016-17] (with Luke)

[The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; Carry On, Mr. Bowditch; The Magician’s Nephew; Number the Stars; Amos Fortune, Free Man]

The Secret Garden

[The Door in the Wall; A Gathering of Days; Crispin: The Cross of Lead; The Bronze Bow]

CC Challenge I Reading List [2016-17] (with Levi and McKinnon)

Billy Bud, Sailor

The Scarlet Letter

The Red Badge of Courage

The Gold-Bug and Other Tales (Poe)

Through the Gates of Splendor (Elisabeth Elliot)

Born Again (Chuck Colson)

Starship Troopers

Up from Slavery (Booker T. Washington)

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (re-read)

Self-Reliance Ralph W. Emerson

Walden (Henry David Thoreau)

The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway)

Tom Sawyer

The Call of the Wild

Johnny Tremain

The Sign of the Beaver (re-read)

Harvey (Mary Chase)

The Witch of Blackbird Pond

An Old-Fashioned Girl

Whatever Happened to Penny Candy?

The Money Mystery

The Taming of the Shrew (re-read)

I, Isaac, Take Thee, Rebekah

(American Documents)