We continued our weekly family book club this year to keep exposing the kids to books they might not otherwise choose to read, and I once again worked to find books that (sort of) matched what we were studying in history and worked well for all three of my kids as far as interest/length/content were concerned. (This year they were in 7th, 6th, and 4th grades by age.)
This year we did a world history overview, so I tried to find books from all over the world in all different periods of history. I browsed book lists and read reviews and tried to find stories that were reasonably authentic and hadn’t aged poorly if they were older books. Some eras in history and parts of the world don’t have as many stories available, so that made for an interesting family conversation, as well. Since I had such a long list, a few of these turned into family read-alouds instead of book club books. Here are the books we read this year and our general opinion of them:
To be honest, I’ve never loved the idea of teaching a “Literature” class. I’ve done it as a brick-and-mortar school teacher, since it was required of me, but I always felt a bit as if I was killing the story for everyone by asking them to analyze every aspect of every chapter as they went. There’s definitely a place for literary analysis, but I don’t think it should hinder that first-read-through enjoyment.
Up until this year in our homeschool, I haven’t had any required reading. I’ve wanted my kids to read for enjoyment and to grow naturally as readers–and subsequently, as writers and thinkers, since reading teaches you to write and expands your world. There were long stretches of time when one or another of my kids didn’t do much reading at all. Though if I’m being fair, that’s not strictly true: they simply weren’t reading formally. They’d obsess over video game Wiki pages, write notes to their siblings and read the responses, browse magazines I’d left open on the counter, reminisce by reading through a long-loved picture book, or giggle up a storm at one of the cartoon anthologies my husband and I have from days of yore. So they were reading, but I bit my fingernails wondering if they were doing enough. You know how that goes?
At this point, my twelve-year-old is re-reading the Septimus Heap series at top speed, having recently read through every Rick Riordan book ever written. My eleven-year-old has transitioned from a Rick Riordan obsession to a memoir/biography obsession. My nine-year-old is still in the eclectic reading phase: he’ll pore over military encyclopedias, read Calvin & Hobbes until he’s practically got the anthology memorized, devour elementary nonfiction on topics that fascinate him, and make his way through picture books of the long-and-difficult variety. Most importantly to me, all three of my kids see reading as something they enjoy and pursue of their own volition.
Here are some of the books we read this past year. (A couple more were borrowed from friends or are currently loaned out to others.)
This past year, however, I decided it was time to help them stretch beyond the bounds of their natural inclinations. There are SO MANY good books out there that my kids weren’t reading: either the cover art wasn’t exciting, the genre didn’t appeal, or the text looked too intimidating. Thus, the Family Book Club was born. Okay, okay, so ‘Love isn’t participating since we meet while he’s working, but hey, ⅘ isn’t bad, right?
butmostlymommy 