What are some of your children's all time favorite literary works? I lead a literature club for grades 6-8 in our homeschool group but want to change that next year for grades 7-12 (or somesuch). I'm looking for exciting, great titles that will meet muster in a group of homeschoolers. :angel: Looking for interesting classics, Newbery winners, etc., basically great all around reads. I've hit a home run with almost every book I chose for the younger set....now I have set the bar a little too high for myself, feels like.
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing Lord of the Flies The Crucible Fahrenheit 451 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (preview for younger kids) The Outsiders I Am David PS. I'm doing a book club now for 5-8th graders and I'd love to hear some of the books you've used for that age group.
'The Mayor of Casterbridge' by Thomas Hardy. Great story, well told, very descriptive, with some interesting snippets of rural England 200 years ago.
We did Tom Sawyer, Alice in Wonderland and Where the Red Fern Grows so far this year. I couldn't find any good literature for WW1. We did the red fern with the depression, and watched "The Grapes of Wrath". For WWII we are doing To Hell and Back (but there is ALOT of language in this book, so I wouldn't use it, except they are MY kids and I CAN!!) The Hiding Place and probably Anne Frank...I am not sure I never liked Anne Frank. (like being a relative term in this case) The boys REALLY liked Where the Red Fern Grows and Tom Sawyer. We tried Johnny Tremain but they hated it. So we did Guns for General Washington and A Spy in Williamsburg for the Revolutionary war. They watched "The Patriot" with their father. (again, don't recommend it without close parental involvement) I also liked Caddie Woodlawn, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Black Beauty, and Girl of the Limberlost. Anne of Green Gables too. The Secret Garden, The Jungle Book. although the boys didn't like the Jungle Book. They did like Adam of the Road (middle ages) If I had time we would also do Down the Long Hills by Louis L'Amour...I LOVED that one in my teens.
One I REALLY enjoyed was Shadow Spinner by Susan Fletcher. It's more of a "girl's" book, but very excellent. Also, A Wrinkle in Time. For the older group, consider The Chosen by Chiam Potok.
Great list. Thank you SOOOO much! Here are the ones we did this year that they loved: Crispin: A Cross of Lead Johnny Tremain A Single Shard I, Juan de Pareja The Shining Company Carry on, Mr. Bowditch Soon to read: Captains Courageous. I'd be glad to share some of our ideas that we used in our book club, if you're interested. If so, you can email me (webmaster) at our homeschool site which is lamphomeschool dot net Blessings~
We LOVED Tom Sawyer and the original Alice in Wonderland is one of my son's all time favorites. Great fun exercise: Use the poem "Jabberwocky" to label parts of speech. Children can circle verbs, highlight adjectives in pink, underline nouns, etc. With all the nonsense words, children will realize that they don't have to memorize real words to recognize them as parts of speech. FUN!! (leave it to a homeschool mom to call that fun. ) For a slightly lighter choice for WWII, have they read Number the Stars? It's written for probably grades 5 and up, but our lit club really liked it. My boys really liked Johnny Tremain.....:cry: You mentioned liking Black Beauty....have they read King of the Wind? Neat book...and I'm not a horse lover. Adam of the Road is GREAT! They'd probably also love (if they haven't read them already) Crispin; A Cross of Lead, The Door in the Wall, The Midwife's Apprentice and Matilda Bone. Great Middle Ages literature.
Thank you all SOOOOO much. These are just great. I've added all these titles to my "possibles" list. What I did last year was create an internet survey on our homeschool website and asked the moms to rate the titles. It worked GREAT in choosing literature for our club. Jackie, Funny you would mention Shadow Spinner. Just found that one and my middle son is reading it now. They don't mind "girly" literature. He also really liked Mara, Daughter of the Nile but balanced it with some testosterone loaded books later. lol.
If he likes Shadow Spinner, consider Alphabet of Dreams, by the same author. Though I did like Shadow Spinner better. Another one that's really good but VERY difficult to get is The Chestry Oak by Kate Seredy. I had to get it on InterLibrary Loan. It takes place during WWII, and is really worth the effort to get it. About a young prince living in eastern Europe, whose father is a "collaborator" for the Germans, but he's really working for the Allied forces. EXCELLENT book! Hey, a REALLY FUN "guy" book (that I enjoyed as a kid!) is called The Mad Scientist Club. It's actually a collection of short stories written in the late fifties-sixties for Boys Life magazine. The first story is about the youngest member of the club coming home late for dinner and making up a story about why he was late. He saw a Sea Monster in the lake!!! So his friends MAKE a sea monster from an old row boat. They look for hidden treasure, win a hot air balloon race, turn an old manikin into a "flying man", and find an injured pilot who had to parachute from a failing airplane. Really good stuff!
My ds started reading the spiderwick chronicles recently not sure how good they are but his reading tastes are low at the moment. He would rather read a how to manual about how to create a game for hours then a book.
The author Kate Seredy sounds familiar. I'll look for both of those books. Thank you for the suggestions, Jackie. I have a son who reads computer programming manuals the way some ladies read romances. Crazy. Has your son read the Series of Unfortunate Events? All my boys loved those. Hank the Cowdog (mentioned in another thread) is another great set of books for reluctant readers. I tutored and used those to get boys to read. They are laugh out loud funny.
my son used to like Hank too, good choice there. I also think the unfortunate events and the City of Ember books are some my kids like
How about Eragon? My oldest is an aspiring novelist and Christopher Paolini is his homeschool "hero" (of sorts.) My boys also enjoyed The Hunger Games (and subsequent two books in the series). These need to be "parent approved" as they are a little gritty (no language or sexuality but quite a bit of violence). My boys are older now (18, 16, 14) so I ok'd them and read them myself. They were thrilled that they were being made into a movie. Let's see how they rate that one....I'm sure Hollywood will hype up the romance factor.....:roll:
My son also love the Hunger Games Series, but like Maranatha said, they are a little on the violent side.
My youngest LOVES the Wimpy kid series. They are great for fun reading, especially since we travel frequently and spend HOURS in the car. He gets tired of me handing him some tedious Dickens or Jane Austin type book to read. It's like saying, "Wanna snack? Here's some bok choy and prune juice. It's good for you!"
Oh, did anyone mention the Redwall books by Brian Jacques? They are Faythe's absolute favorite books!
The Hunger Games are all the rage right now, but they are intense. I recently did a "parent" review of each on my blog, but since this is my very first post (hi everyone!) I don't think I can link it. So google "Bookworm Blather" if you want to read them. I'd also recommend Elizabeth George Speare. "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" is excellent, but my daughter liked "The Bronze Bow" even better. Avi is tremendous, too. I agree with the "Crispin: The Cross of Lead" enthusiast above, but my son and daughter both liked "True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle" better. (So did I.) It was a Newbery Honor book. Gary D. Schmidt is one more family favorite. Especially "The Wednesday Wars." He's got a brand new one out, something about "Audobahn." We haven't read it yet, but Mr. Schmidt hasn't let us down yet!
