The HSL 2018 Reading Challenge
Now this is a New Year's resolution we can get behind: Read more in 2018 with the HSL homeschool reading challenge.
New year, new books! If you’re looking for a way to organize your (endless) reading lists for 2018, consider our Reading Challenge Bingo — it’s flexible enough to work for you and your younger readers and a fun way to keep track of what you’re reading throughout the year. You can be as ambitious as you like: Complete the card, or just complete a row. Ideally, this challenge will point you toward a few books you wanted to read anyway and toward a few books that you might not have picked up otherwise. (We’ll choose books that tick off bingo boxes for our readalouds of the week during 2018.)
- a book at least 100 years older than you are
- a book you can read in one day
- a book by a Native American author
- a book that has more than 500 pages
- a novel based on a real person
- a book by a South American author
- a book told through letters
- a book with a protagonist who is (on the surface) nothing like you — from a different country, of a different ethnic background, etc.
- a book set on the continent of Africa
- a book your librarian recommends
- a book by a favorite author
- a novel written in verse
- a collection of short stories
- a banned book
- a book that’s been translated into English
- one of Suzanne’s Library Chicken recommendations
- a book by a writer from another country
- a book published in 2018
- a book about nature
- a book with a title you love
- a classic you’ve been meaning to read
- a book published the year you were born
- a book written by an immigrant
- a book inspired by Asian mythology or folklore
- the first book in a series
You can download a copy of the Bingo card here. (And Suzanne has some great tips for keeping up with what you're reading during the year.) Happy reading in 2018!
Readaloud of the Week: The Children of Noisy Village
Sometimes you want a readaloud that's pure comfort read. The Children of Noisy Village is a good bet.
THE CHILDREN OF NOISY VILLAGE by Astrid Lindgren
Sometimes you just want a book that’s pure comfort reading — a story that’s warm and gentle and set in a time before Netflix and Instagram. Anyway, that’s the kind of readaloud I like to start a new year with, and if you’re feeling like a soothing story time, too, you can’t do much better than The Children of Noisy Village.
The Children of Noisy Village is set in a little community of Swedish farms: Middle Farm, where narrator Lisa and her two brothers live is nestled between two other family farms, each of which also has children. (The children spend most of their free time playing together, which earned their little village its name, explains Lisa.) It’s not a particularly eventful story, but it’s funny and charming and oddly captivating. When Lisa and her friend go to the market without a written list, they keep forgetting things and having to walk back to get them. Lisa decides she wants to do good deeds and goes around inadvertently torturing her neighbors with her efforts. Everyone wakes up at four in the morning to go fishing for crayfish. Lisa and her friends at the next farm send notes to each other through their windows. The seasons come and go, and with them, the seasonal celebrations and food and activities. (I find myself jotting ideas on our calendar that I don’t want to forget when our days are full and busy again.)
A lot of young readers could read this on their own — it falls somewhere between those very early I Can Read chapter books and Little House in the Big Woods, I think, as far as reading levels go. But I think it’s the most fun as a readaloud because it’s funnier and sweeter when you read it together.
Stuff We Like :: 12.29.17
Literary resolutions, how to stop wanting everyone you meet to like you, the end of the period, and more stuff we like.
Happy New Year! I hope you are getting to slow down a little and enjoy some downtime with your family.
around the web
Your perfect New Year’s resolution based on your favorite literary character. (I am Hermione Granger-ing all the way in 2018.)
Speaking of resolutions: How to get over the need to be liked by everyone you meet
Suzanne and I were just talking about this! Apparently “OK.” is the most passive-aggressive text you can send someone.
This is fascinating: The ongoing archaeology behind The Island of the Blue Dolphins
at home/school/life
in the magazine: We’re wrapping up the winter issue—hooray!
on the blog: Our family’s favorite books of 2017
one year ago: A high school history curriculum that asks big questions (I know lots of people who are using this program and loving it)
two years ago: How to start homeschooling in the middle of the year
three years ago: Three words every homeschooling parent should know
at home
I’m sort of obsessed with these coffee malted cookies, and I love that I have the extra time to actually bake them right now.
We are all really enjoying hanging out, playing games, reading our new books, and eating way too much yummy food. It probably doesn't make for very exciting reading, but it’s been pretty fabulous.
Some of Our Favorite Books of 2017
It's time for our favorite books of 2017 roundup! From picture books with swagger to hard-hitting investigative journalism, from feminist dystopias (not what you think!) to Victorian mysteries, these are our picks for best homeschool reads of the year.
Since it’s the end of the year, everybody’s getting new reading logs — which means our scribbled-up, book-filled 2017 reading logs have been getting marked up with stars to indicate our favorite books of the year. Some of these books were published this year, some weren’t, some I’m surprised to see on the list, but all of them were rated favorites by me or my kids. (They are not listed in any particular order.) I am terrible at categorizing books by age because my own kids read above and below their “levels” more than they read on them, but I’ve tried to group these loosely into children’s books, young adult books, fiction, and nonfiction — though I definitely wouldn't recommend treating these categories anything more than loose guidelines.
Children’s Books
5 WORLDS: THE SAND WARRIOR by Mark and Alexis Siegel
At the top of my son’s list is this gorgeous graphic fantasy about three friends on a quest to save the five worlds. The worlds are brilliantly imagined (a little bit “Avatar: The Last Air Bender,” a little bit “Star Wars), the action is fast-paced and exciting, and we can’t wait for book two.
OUT OF WONDER: POEMS CELEBRATING POETS by Kwame Alexander and Chris Colderley
I try to pick up a new poetry collection for our bookshelf every year, and this was the one we chose this year. Visually, it’s gorgeous — the collage style illustrations are sheer exuberant joy. And I love that the poems are all tributes to other poets (including Naomi Shihab Nye, Langston Hughes, Basho, Pablo Neruda, and more) — it made us excited to go explore those poets, too.
LET’S PRETEND WE NEVER MET by Melissa Walker
Probably because he’s never been to school, my 10-year-old is fascinating by books about middle school politics. In this one, a lonely new girl in town finds out that her fun new neighbor is actually the “weird kid” at her new school. I think he also loved the book’s totally relatable, Judy Blume-ish vibe, which I enjoyed, too.
ALL’S FAIRE IN MIDDLE SCHOOL by Victoria Jamieson
Always homeschooled Imogen grew up working at the Renaissance Faire with her parents, and she’s determined to tackle her new challenge just like a brave knight would. But going back to traditional school seems more difficult than slaying dragons in this likable graphic novel.
BEN FRANKLIN’S IN MY BATHROOM! by Candace Fleming
If your kids loved the Magic Treehouse and the Time Warp Trio series, they will probably be as happy as my son was to discover that there’s a new time travel history series in town. When Ben Franklin shows up in Nolan’s bathroom (go with it), Nolan has a great adventure showing the Founding Father how the world he helped imagine has turned out.
CROWN: AN ODE TO THE FRESH CUT by Derrick Barnes
I loved this playful, freestyling ode to the barber shop — the place where little boys get to experience the thrill of being king for the length of a haircut. It’s a lovely book for young black boys, but I loved it, too.
BRONZE AND SUNFLOWER by Cao Wenxuan
Oh my goodness, this little book packs such a wallop. It’s the story of two only children living in poverty in rural China during the Cultural Revolution who slowly build a friendship that enriches them both. It made me cry in the good way.
THE ARRIVAL by Shaun Tan
This wordless graphic novel is incredibly powerful. Strange and surreal, it reads like a silent movie, as the newcomer discovers his new country, which is fantastic and beautiful, lonely and isolating, frightening and limited, warm and welcoming all at the same time.
A MILLION SHADES OF GRAY by Cynthia Kadohata
This novel of the Vietnam war focuses on a side of the war that we seldom consider — what was life like for the Vietnamese after the U.S. soldiers withdrew? Y’Tin is a child of the war who dreams of training elephants one day but faces more immediate pressures when his village is captured by the North Vietnamese.
UNDEFEATED: JIM THORPE AND THE CARLISLE INDIAN SCHOOL FOOTBALL TEAM by Steve Sheinkin
Everyone teases me that sports is my trivia kryptonite — I always just guess “Jim Thorpe” and hope for the best. So we may have been predisposed to dig this book about the future Olympian who was sent to a school designed to “un-Indian” him and who didn’t even become a U.S. citizen until 1924, when the government extended the privileges of citizenship to Native Americans. Sheinkin is always awesome; this book is no exception.
OTTOLINE AND THE PURPLE FOX by Chris Riddell
Ottoline is one of our favorites! We loved this adventure with an urban safari and a secret poet, but it’s the illustrations that make this book so delightful.
THE DOORMAN’S REPOSE by Chris Raschka
The interconnected stories centering around a possibly magical apartment building on the Upper East Side of Manhattan are just plain charming.
THE WINGSNATCHERS by Sarah Jean Horwitz
What a fun story! Part steampunk adventure, part twisted fairy tale, this fantasy teams up a frustrated would-be inventor (currently employed as a magician’s assistant) with a fiery faerie princess to find the cause behind a string of faerie disappearances. We read this aloud twice because everyone enjoyed it so much.
AMINA’S VOICE by Hena Khan
Soojin and Amina are best friends who’ve always bonded over their “other” status — both of their families are immigrants who don’t exactly fit the “American” mold. But when Soojin embraces her new U.S. identity — even adopting an Americanized name — Amina is lonely and confused.
AKATA WITCH by Nnedi Okorafor
I know this one’s on Suzanne’s list, too, but I couldn’t leave it off — my daughter and I both loved this book, which is much more than a Nigerian Harry Potter, even though that’s the most immediate reference that comes to mind. American-born 12-year-old Sunny doesn't fit in anywhere, until she gets admitted to a school for magical kids.
HELLO, UNIVERSE by Erin Entrada Kelly
Four unlikely friends get caught up in an unexpected journey together in this well-plotted story about finding your inner hero. My son liked this one so much he read it himself after we read it as a readaloud.
RISE OF THE JUMBIES by Tracey Baptiste
Corinne doesn’t believe in the Jumbies — evil creatures that live in the dark forests of the island where she lives. But when a strange, beautiful woman named Severine appears, Corinne must battle the forces of darkness to save her home. I love that this book is based on a Haitian folktale that I’d never heard of, but the story definitely stands on its own.
REFUGEE by Alan Gratz
Focusing on three turbulent periods — 1930s Germany, 1994 Cuba, and 2015 Syria — Gratz imagines the stories of three young refugees fleeing unspeakable horrors in search of a better life. Maybe I wouldn’t hand this to particularly young or very sensitive kids, but I think this is the refugee book we should all be reading together.
CHEF ROY CHOI AND THE STREET FOOD REMIX by Jacqueline Briggs Martin
My son and I loved this picture book biography of street food chef Roy Choi, whose Korean fusion food helped kick off the street food trend. We’re always looking for fun biographies, and this one proved to be a big hit.
THE BOOK OF MISTAKES by Corinna Luyken
I am thrilled that my perfectionist son triple-starred this picture book about the unexpected magic of mistakes. Sometimes the thing you think you messed up ends up being the best part.
Young Adult
A CORNER OF WHITE, THE CRACKS IN THE KINGDOM, and A TANGLE OF GOLD by Jacklyn Moriarty
I read The Colors of Madeleine trilogy on Suzanne’s recommendation — mostly because she said it was a great characterization of homeschoolers, which is true — and, as usual, she was right. I loved the world of Cello, which is full of marauding colors and rapidly shifting seasons, and I loved the friendship that develops between Madeleine and Elliot when they find a crack that connects Oxford in our world to Elliot’s world. Moriarty does a brilliant job building connections and ideas that deliver big pay-off in later books.
CITY OF SAINTS AND THIEVES by Natalie C. Anderson
Tina, a teen refugee-turned-pickpocket, is determined to get revenge for her mother’s murder. She’s been harboring her dream of vengeance for years, but the closer she gets to fulfilling her mission, the less sure she is that she knows the truth about what happened that night. My daughter devoured this book.
AMERICAN STREET by Ibi Zoboi
Fabiola Toussaint thought coming to America would be her happy ending. Instead, her mom gets detained by U.S. immigration, and Fabiola is forced to make sense of life with her rowdy cousins in a rough part of Detroit alone. We’ve been reading a lot of good books about immigration and the immigrant experience this year, but this is one of the best.
STRANGE PRACTICE by Vivian Shaw
My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
LUMBERJANES by Noelle Stevenson
Another title that also shows up on Suzanne’s list! My daughter loves this comic series starring five badass buds so much she keeps it stacked on her night table.
MOXIE by Jennifer Mathieu
I adored this book about a girl whose underground zine accidentally starts a feminist revolution at her Texas high school.
THE HATE U GIVE by Angie Thomas
You’ve probably already seen this book on several best-of lists, but it really is pretty amazing — heartbreaking, hopeful, tense, and timely. Starr lives in a poor urban neighborhood but attends a fancy suburban prep school, a world-straddling proposition that gets even more complicated when she witnesses the police shooting of a childhood friend.
THE BEST WE COULD DO by Thi Bui
Another great book we discovered while reading about immigration experiences, this graphic novel memoir is an achingly evocative account of one family’s escape from 1970s Vietnam. Bui weaves together her childhood memories with her experiences as a new mom in a roller coaster of emotions.
PURPLE HIBISCUS by Chimamanda Adichi
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's debut novel focuses on 15-year-old Kambili and her life in her father’s harsh, abusive Nigerian home. As Kambili realizes — with the help of her free-spirited aunt — that her father’s authority is not absolute, she also realizes, for the first time, the possibility of her own life.
THE DIRE KING by William Ritter
My daughter was a huge fan of this supernatural Sherlock Holmes-ish series, so she greeted its last of four books with a combination of excitement and sadness, but as finales go, this one was pretty satisfying. As always, assistant-to-the-detective Abigail Rook shines in the apocalyptic battle that’s been building over the series, but shapeshifting police detective Charlie, ghostly Jenny, and expert on all things supernatural Jackaby all have great moments, too.
THE RUBY IN THE SMOKE by Philip Pullman
My daughter got hooked on this mystery series this year thanks to this first book, in which 16-year-old Sally Lockhart sets out into the seamy underbelly of Victorian London to solve her father’s murder.
THE POWER by Naomi Alderman
In this dystopian novel with a feminist twist, teenage girls around the world discover that their bodies have the power to emit a deadly electric charge on demand, totally shifting the traditional power dynamic. It was exactly the book I needed this year.
Fiction
EXIT WEST by Mohsin Hamid
I was shell-shocked by this book in all the best possible ways. Hamid weaves a thread of magical realism through the all-too-real portrait of a city on the edge of war, making the story of Saeed and Nadia both an unlikely love story and a haunting tale of refugee life. It’s difficult, and gorgeous, and definitely worth reading.
AUTUMN by Ali Smith
Set in post-Brexit England, this is the story of ]30-something art history lecturer Elisabeth and the 101-year-old man who helped care for her when she was a child. Now drifting in and out of consciousness at a residential care facility, Daniel becomes a “sleeping Socrates,” an anchor for Elisabeth in a turbulent, complicated time. It’s a tender, touching story that’s slow and subtle, and I really loved it.
FUTURE HOME OF THE LIVING GOD by Louise Erdrich
Tis the season for dystopia, I guess, but this is another one that I enjoyed: I know Erdrich mostly for her lovely Native American stories, so this is a different vein for her. In a dark future where evolution reverses course, the government starts rounding up pregnant women, and a pregnant, part-Ojibwe woman goes on the run as society begins to disintegrate.
THE SECRETS OF WISHTIDE by Kate Saunders
I don’t know if this prim-with-an-edge Victorian mystery — starring a clergyman’s widow who has been navigating life as a middle-aged woman in reduced circumstances — counts as great literature, but it was certainly enjoyable literature. I’m always on the lookout for a mystery that’s fun to solve and peopled with interesting characters, and this one delivered on both counts.
THE MAGPIE MURDERS by Anthony Horowitz
My other favorite mystery of 2017 was this multi-layered treat: An editor gets a manuscript of a famous detective novelist’s last book, but the last chapter is missing — and, it turns out, the famous detective novelist in question may have been murdered. It’s an homage to classic British detective fiction and a modern-day mystery, and even though I didn’t love everything about the ending, I found the experience of reading it to be very, very satisfying.
Nonfiction
BUNK: THE RISE OF HOAXES, HUMBUGS, PLAGIARISTS, PHONIES, POST-FACTS, AND FAKE NEWS by Kevin Young
Brilliant. Young considers the hoax as a peculiarly American phenomenon, highlighting historical frauds in the context of their times and in the racism and stereotyping that often accompanied their chicanery. If you’ve been more than a little stressed out by the trend toward choose-your-own-facts, you will definitely appreciate this book.
THE MAGIC OF REALITY: HOW WE KNOW WHAT’S REALLY TRUE by Richard Dawkins
We all four loved this readaloud about the science of everyday life — and the ways in which the scientific truths of reality are often even more interesting and exciting than any mythical explanation.
WHAT SHE ATE: SIX REMARKABLE WOMEN AND THE FOOD THAT TELLS THEIR STORIES by Laura Shapiro
I’ve been recommending this book to everyone. Shapiro chronicles the lives of six women — Dorothy Wordsworth, Rosa Lewis, Eleanor Roosevelt, Eva Braun, Barbara Pym, and Helen Gurley Brown — through the food they cooked and ate, and the result is utterly fascinating.
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON by David Grann
David Grann rocks my world, and this book is everything I love about his obsessively researched, detail-rich writing. This is a tragic story that most of us have never heard about murders of Osage tribe members by their protectors in the 1920s — and how the investigation of those murders helped create the modern FBI.
DINNER: CHANGING THE GAME by Melissa Clark
I buy cookbooks by the dozen, but this one is a standout. I love the variety of recipes and the keep-it-simple philosophy Clark embraces.
I CAN’T BREATHE: A KILLING ON BAY STREET by Matt Taibbi
I feel like I read a lot of sad books this year, but this one is particularly gut-wrenching. Tabby tackles the problematic death of Eric Garner, a black man who died in New York City police custody. It’s like watching a really great episode of “The Wire” but without any humor in it — it’s honestly hard to get through in some places, but maybe that’s what makes it so important to read.
Our Favorite Holiday Readalouds
Happy Holidays! If you're looking for an excuse to snuggle up with a good book and your favorite people, here's a handy roundup of some of our favorite holiday readalouds.
Happy Holidays! If you're looking for an excuse to snuggle up with a good book and your favorite people, here's a handy roundup of some of our favorite holiday readalouds.
Readaloud of the Week: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
The Herdmans wreak havoc on a traditional holiday pageant and end up creating a Christmas story that is surprisingly touching in this laugh-out-loud classic.
THE BEST CHRISTMAS PAGEANT EVER by Barbara Robinson
The Herdmans are terrible. They’re the worst kids in town. And now they’re set to star in the annual Christmas pageant.
I can still remember laughing until my sides hurt when my 5th grade teacher read this book aloud, and it remains satisfyingly hilarious. Ralph, Imogene, Leroy, Claude, Ollie, and Gladys Herdman are delightfully awful kids, and watching them wreak havoc with the traditional, staid Christmas pageant is pure fun.
This story is about a Christmas pageant at a church, so if you’re avoiding any Christmas-themed readings this year, steer clear of this one. Even though it gets a little sentimental about the “real meaning” of Christmas, though, the fact that everyone has to explain the Christmas story to the Herdmans gives it a playfulness that transcends religion. (Imogene, playing Mary, is horrified that they “tie the baby Jesus up and put him in a feedbox” and wants to know why no one called Child Services about that.) I think it does a nice job contrasting our shiny, perfect version of the story of Christmas with the historical facts of what it actually would have been like for a refugee family with a pregnant woman trying to make the best of a tough situation. The Herdmans get into the story, not just the mythology: They want to take down baby-murdering Herod and smack the interfering shepherds, and it’s a refreshingly funny way of looking at this very traditional story. If you do celebrate Christmas, you’ll probably find this story both funny and tender; if you don’t celebrate Christmas, you’ll appreciate the humor and the Herdman’s confusion over some of the details. Honestly, I think it would make a fun introduction to the traditional Christmas story since it manages to be both skeptical and respectful at the same time.
And did I mention that it’s hilarious?
Stuff We Like :: 12.22.17
The true identity (?) of Sherlock Holmes, an amazing woman who survived an Arctic expedition in the 1920s, the depressingly long history of fighting back against harassment, and more stuff we like. Happy Holidays!
Happy Holidays! The offices of HSL will be closed for the next two weeks — which is a fancy way of saying I will be taking a little family vacation! Posts will go up as usual, but I will have limited access to email and messages, so thanks in advance for your patience.
around the web
Is Sherlock Holmes actually Henry David Thoreau?
Another feminist biography I need, stat: Ada Blackjack was the only survivor of a 1921 Arctic expedition. (She’d signed onto the expedition as a seamstress because it paid a generous salary that would allow her to finally pay for medical care for her ill son.)
Women’s fight against sexual harassment started long before Twitter. (No wonder we’re all so tired of it!)
A pretty disturbing look at the cost and success of SCAD.
at home/school/life
on the blog: We rounded up our must-have games for holiday playing.
one year ago: Here’s a roundup of some of our favorite holiday posts from years past. (I still love our No-Stuff Gift Guide!)
two years ago: Making your wellness a priority
three years ago: How second chances free us up for real learning
reading list
My favorite gift so far: Julia Turshen’s Feed the Resistance: Recipes + Ideas for Getting Involved
Our current readaloud: One Mixed-Up Night, in which two kids run away to Ikea (instead of to the Metropolitan Museum of Art) — it’s fun, and the friendship is sweet, but when did we become people who would rather go to Ikea than a museum?
Suzanne swears that Angela Thirkell makes everything better, so I am going all in, starting with Christmas at High Rising, which is apparently a collection of short stories, which suits my current attention span just fine.
at home
I did not have my act together for the holidays, but we whipped up a giant batch of fig and ginger granola that ended up being a hit, so yay! My kids gave their friends copies of Ed Emberley’s Complete Funprint Drawing Book and a set of stamp pads. And I’m giving myself a holiday Negroni.
Stuff We Like :: 12.15.17
Snow! Plus the homeschoolers of Harvard, weird interstellar space objects, the top kid/YA books of 2017, and more Stuff We Like.
You guys, it snowed! And it’s Hanukkah! And there was election news that didn’t make me want to hide under the bed. Please let this be a sign of things to come.
around the web
I hope this makes you laugh as hard as I did: 20 Authors I Don’t Have to Read Because I Have Dated Men for 16 Years (I actually love Kurt Vonnegut, but #2 made me laugh so hard I spat my coffee.)
Relevant to my interests: A lovely profile on the homeschoolers of Harvard. “Homeschooling prepared me for Harvard really well because it fostered such a strong love for the act of learning… Not learning for a grade, not learning for an exam, but learning for the sheer love of knowledge itself.”
Let’s nerd out together about weird interstellar space objects, okay?
The weirdest thing I read this week: Judah Maccabee Versus the Anti-Vaxxers
at home/school/life
on the blog: I think we all need Suzanne’s top 10 kid/YA books books of 2017 list, right?
one year ago: I forgot how much I love this nerdy t-shirt roundup!
two years ago: I always find myself going back to Shelli’s list of easy ways to celebrate the winter solstice. (It's coming up!)
three years ago: Learning authentically through homeschooling
reading list
You know I will read anything about the Tudors, but Black Tudors was particularly fascinating — it’s a group biography of ten African people who made their homes in Tudor England (including an independent single woman!). It’s always interesting to read Black history before slavery became its defining characteristic — it’s so sad but also fascinating to imagine what it would look like if slavery hadn’t happened, and this book offers a glimpse at some of those possibilities (as well as the racism that would allow slavery to take such a long hold on Western history).
I love books about food and its role in history (See also: Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine, What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women and the Food That Tells Their Stories), so I was delighted to stumble upon A Square Meal: A Culinary History of the Great Depression, which — as the name tells you —is a history of eating during the 1930s and the emergence of what we think of as “American cuisine.”
at home
I love snow days. And I love having an excuse to have a fire. And I love jelly doughnuts. And I love that finals are over, and there’s a lovely, lovely vacation just ahead of me.
Like I have free time, I know, but I’m considering carving a little out to take this Literature and Mental Health: Reading for Wellbeing course because I feel like it might be just what I need. Doesn’t it seem like it might be just what we all kind of need?
Library Chicken Update :: Top 10 Kids/Young Adult Books Read in 2017
Suzanne picks the best 10 children's and young adult books she crossed off her TBR list in 2017 in this Library Chicken roundup.
Welcome to the weekly round-up of what the BookNerd is reading and how many points I scored (or lost) in Library Chicken. To recap, you get a point for returning a library book that you’ve read, you lose a point for returning a book unread, and while returning a book past the due date is technically legal, you do lose half a point. If you want to play along, leave your score in the comments!
It’s my favorite time of the year: LIST TIME! There’s nothing I love more than a good list, so we’re taking a break from your regularly scheduled Library Chicken Update to present (in no particular order) Library Chicken’s Top 10 Kids/Young Adult Books Read in 2017. (Stay tuned next week for Library Chicken’s Top 10 Nonfiction Books!)
THE UNBEATABLE SQUIRREL GIRL by Ryan North and Erica Henderson
LUMBERJANES by Noelle Stevenson (and others)
PAPER GIRLS by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang
One of the themes of my 2017 reading turned out to be graphic novels about awesome young women doing awesome things with all their awesome friends. The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl and Lumberjanes series are wonderfully smart, funny, and diverse, and would make great gifts for your favorite 8- to 12-year-olds. (I’m speaking from experience, as two of my favorite 9-year-olds are now big fans after getting the first couple of volumes from their Auntie Suzanne.) For older YA readers (and fans of Stranger Things), Paper Girls is a fantastic time-traveling alien-invasion adventure set in the 80s. Definitely put these books on your holiday shopping lists, but be sure to enjoy them yourself before giving them away!
AKATA WITCH by Nnedi Okorafor
I loved this story of a 12-year-old Nigerian-American girl discovering her magical powers with the help of fellow students and an assortment of mysterious elders. It’s a wonderful read, especially for anyone who obsessively checks bookstore shelves just in case another Harry Potter novel has suddenly appeared. I haven’t yet read the sequel, Akata Warrior, but it’s on my Christmas wishlist (HINT HINT).
ONE CRAZY SUMMER (and sequels) by Rita Williams-Garcia
In 1968, three sisters travel from New York to California to spend the summer with the mother who left them to follow her own dreams. Instead of visiting Disneyland, they find themselves at a Black Panther day camp. After reading the first book, I couldn’t wait to read more about this amazing, loving, complicated family in P.S. Be Eleven and Gone Crazy in Alabama. My only complaint is that there aren’t more books in the series, as I’d happily follow these sisters from pre-teens to 40-somethings. (As an extra bonus, the covers of all three books are gorgeous.)
THE GLASS TOWN GAME by Catherynne M. Valente
Valente is swiftly moving up the ranks in the list of my all-time favorite authors. This novel follows the four young Bronte siblings (Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne) as they accidentally find themselves in a magical world of their own creation. Similar in style to Valente’s Fairyland series with a dash of The Phantom Tollbooth, this would be a great read-aloud and introduction to the Brontes (although you may have to prepare your listeners for some post-book heartbreak when they learn about the eventual fates of the siblings). I especially loved the Jane Austen cameo, presented (as Valente apologetically notes) from Charlotte’s point of view (she’s not a fan).
THE ALEX CROW by Andrew Smith
Smith’s YA novels (including the apocalyptic Grasshopper Jungle) are bizarre, upsetting, raunchy, utterly original, and chock full of adolescent males acting as adolescent-male-y as humanly possible. They are also entertaining, compelling, and surprisingly touching (even if you happen to be neither adolescent nor male). Our protagonist here is Ariel, a young war refugee adopted by an American family, and it only gets weirder (much much weirder) from there.
LANDSCAPE WITH INVISIBLE HAND by M.T. Anderson
This YA novella was short but memorable, exploring ideas about imperialism and cultural appropriation through the alien vuvv, Earth’s new, (mostly) benign overlords. To make money in the post-vuvv economy, our hero Adam and his girlfriend livestream their romance for the aliens’ enjoyment, but that’s a little more difficult now that they’ve broken up.
GLORY O'BRIEN'S HISTORY OF THE FUTURE by A.S. King
Petrified bat drinking leads to strange visions of a near future anti-feminist Second American Civil War. Really, that’s all the info you should need to run out and read this YA novel, but if it helps it’s also a sensitive portrayal of family, loss, and friendship. (Also a good warning to readers not to drink petrified bats.)
THE RAVEN CYCLE by Maggie Stiefvater
Stiefvater’s four book fantasy YA series (beginning with The Raven Boys) includes a family of eccentric psychics, the clairvoyant daughter of the house, and a set of cute prep school boys who may have strange powers of their own. It’s great all the way through and I look forward to reading more Stiefvater in 2018.
Gift Guide: Gift Ideas for People Who Love Roald Dahl
If you’ve got a reader who’s gone exploring with James, explored a candy factory with Charlie, loaded up a library tote with Matilda, or otherwise lived vicariously through one of Dahl’s fabulously imagined characters, one of these gifts might be the golden ticket you’ve been looking for.
We think there's no better holiday gift than a good book. But sometimes you want to kick it up a notch, so we've put together a few fun gift lists based around some of our favorite books and authors.
** We use some affiliate links on HSL. Learn more here. **
Roald Dahl’s silly, spectacular world is full of spunky heroes and heroines, deliciously evil villains, and all kinds of scrumptious treats. If you’ve got a reader who’s gone exploring with James, explored a candy factory with Charlie, loaded up a library tote with Matilda, or otherwise lived vicariously through one of Dahl’s fabulously imagined characters, one of these gifts might be the golden ticket you’ve been looking for.
There’s something comforting about knowing that the Big Friendly Giant is out there protecting you from bad dreams at night and whispering happy dreams in your ear. This cuddly little BFG plush is a perfect present for big and small dreamers.
A fancy framed print of a favorite Roald Dahl quote is a daily reminder that there’s magic to made out in the world.
Or go with a real book lover’s print: This poster from the Roald Dahl Museum shop contains the full text of The Fantastic Mr. Fox. (Isn’t it so cool?)
This lovely handmade necklace by Deborah Blyth looks perfectly polished, but its Roald Dahl engraved message will subtly announce your affection for the beloved children’s author.
Every Roald Dahl fan needs a golden ticket — and this one comes in a cuddly cushion form.
Speaking of Roald Dahl fan essentials, no Dahl loving bookshelf should be without The Roald Dahl Dictionary, a witty, whimsically illustrated companion to Dahl’s works. You’ll never be at a loss to explain a word like gobblefunking, jumpsquiffling, or squacking again.
When you’re feeling like one of the poor, overworked children forced to do housework for terrible adults in Roald Dahl’s books, at least you can dry the dishes with this adorable towel featuring some favorite characters.
I think you’ve just discovered your new library tote bag.
I usually avoid transatlantic shipping issues, but how can any Dahl fan resist a batch of frobscottle popcorn? (You could also just whip up a batch of homemade frobscottle for your holiday toasts.)
Put your Roald Dahl knowledge to work in an I Spy-style game featuring illustrations by Quentin Blake.
If you don’t already have all the Dahl classics, here’s your chance to get a boxed set of 15 of his best known books for your bookshelf, including classics like The Witches and James and the Giant Peach with lesser-known but equally wonderful books like George’s Marvelous Medicine and The Twits.
Celebrate the way Matilda is the only person who really understands how much you love books every time you have a mug of chocolate this winter.
Did you know there’s a Roald Dahl coloring book? It’s all original art, so no Quentin Blake or Tony Ross (alas), but these are imaginative, fantastically detailed images that you’ll immediately recognize from the Dahl-verse.
Because the only thing better than reading a Roald Dahl book is having Roald Dahl read his books to you, we present for your consideration the Roald Dahl audio collection.
What would you make out of this whimsical Charlie and the Chocolate Factory fabric? I’d wrap it up as-is for a crafty kid or use it make a cute Kindle case if I was feeling crafty myself.
Honestly, I don’t think you have to be a Roald Dahl fan to get excited about this chocolate collection, which includes a frobscottle and cucumber white chocolate bar, Bruce Bogtrotter’s chocolate fudge cake dark chocolate bar, and the “perfectly normal” milk chocolate bar.
You never know when you might get kidnapped by a Big Friendly Giant, so step up your pajama game with an old-fashioned printed nightie and a pair of velvet bear slippers.
You may also enjoy . . .
Readaloud of the Week: The Family Under the Bridge
In this old-fashioned story, a homeless man finds a family and new joy in holiday Paris.
THE FAMILY UNDER THE BRIDGE by Natalie Savage Carlson
Ah, Christmas in Paris. Armand may be homeless, but that doesn’t mean he can’t enjoy the magic of the wintertime city. He is just settling into his cold weather routine when he discovers that a little family has taken over his favorite tunnel under a bridge off the Seine.
The family in question is a trio of children — Suzy, Paul, Evelyne, and their dog Jojo — who are hiding under the bridge while their mother works. Unable to make their rent payments with one income, the family has been forced into homelessness. Unlike Armand, they don’t see the vagabond life as a grand adventure but as a challenge they must overcome — if only they can figure out how. With the whole city coming alive with Christmas magic, Armand takes the children on a walking tour of Paris, gradually — very much against his better judgment — beginning to care about them. Their mother, Madame Calcet, is horrified that her children have taken up with a hobo and that they have been hanging out at a gypsy camp in the city, but Armand quickly reminds her that no one is inherently better than anyone else and that kindness and generosity — not privilege and immigration status — are what make people worth knowing. By the time the holiday arrives, Armand has changed his mind about families and being tied down.
This is such a lovely read for this time of year — partly because it captures some of the beauty of Yuletide Paris and partly because it’s a really lovely reminder that people find their families in all kinds of unexpected ways. It’s set in post-World War II Europe, and you can feel the damage caused by the war in the harsh economics of the Calcets’ life and in Armand’s reluctance to rejoin the civilized world. There is so much hope in this story of people coming together, and it feels like a much-needed alternative to holiday commercials full of presents and “gifting.”
It’s true that this is an old-fashioned book, and the author casually uses some words that we don’t toss around anymore, including “hoboes” and “gypsies.” (I find myself editing out the world “hobo,” which is used to describe Armand over and over again.) It’s a good opportunity to talk about how the words we use matter and how as we learn more about how language can hurt people, we’re able to choose our words more thoughtfully. There’s also a little religion in the book — most notably when Armand goes to Christmas mass to pray for his new friends. Again, this didn’t bother our Jewish family, but your mileage may vary.
Previous Readalouds of the Week
Stuff We Like :: 12.8.17
The SEA conference is coming this summer, the nine circles of hell for linguistic sins, the history of the packaged sandwich in Britain, and more Stuff We Like.
Happy Birthday to Jason! And happy almost-Hanukkah!
The SEA homeschool conference is coming to Atlanta in 2018, and you can score a great price on tickets right now. Please come hang out with me so I don't have to be socially awkward all by myself! :)
around the web
Dante’s nine circles of hell reimagined for linguistic transgressions (Avoid the sixth circle!)
Hear, hear, International Research Society for Children’s Literature: “IRSCL also knows that, in the current geopolitical climate, we cannot take for granted the values of intellectual freedom, scholarly expertise, careful and evidence-based argument and reflection, and the capacity to be open to contrary views, as substantiated through international exchange and collaboration. These values need ongoing articulation, implementation and defense, both within our own ranks and in global society at large.”
Relevant to my interests: The history of the packaged sandwich in Britain
Are we coming to the end of the social media age? (And is that maybe a good thing?)
at home/school/life
on the blog: I always love Suzanne’s book lists, but now that she’s reading all these haunted house books, my TBR list is basically exploding
also on the blog: Gift ideas for your favorite Nancy Drew fan (hint, hint)
one year ago: Books for everybody on your shopping list
two years ago: The Lazy Parent’s Guide to Holiday Cheer
three years ago: Driving Lessons: A Homeschool Mom's View from the Passenger's Seat
reading list
I’ve got an awesome stack of books waiting on my night table now that the semester is wrapping up: The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street, recommended to me by a fellow homeschooler, and Angela Thirkell’s High Rising, which Suzanne assures me will make me feel better about the state of the world while I am reading it.
I’ve also got a few books to tackle for next semester, including SPQR, which I am excited to reread. (If you are a fan of Roman history, I recommend this one — well, I recommend anything by Mary Beard. She’s awesome.)
Suzanne is putting together her best books of 2017 list, and I cannot wait to read it. Because obviously I need a longer list of books I need to read.
at home
Jason’s school is wrapping up its first full semester, and I feel like I should have some pithy wisdom about what it’s like to start a hybrid high school. I don’t, though. I expected it to be a lot of work, and I wasn’t wrong about that, but I was surprised by how much I fell in love with all the students and how completely exhausted I am at the end of every school day. If you want to start a project like this, I think the key is to be totally, 100-percent passionate about it — Jason and Shelly definitely are, and that passion has seen us over a LOT of humps.
Library Chicken Update :: 12.5.17
Haunted houses, apocalypses, imperialism, and more Library Chicken.
Welcome to the weekly round-up of what the BookNerd is reading and how many points I scored (or lost) in Library Chicken. To recap, you get a point for returning a library book that you’ve read, you lose a point for returning a book unread, and while returning a book past the due date is technically legal, you do lose half a point. If you want to play along, leave your score in the comments!
I’m back from Thanksgiving break with an extra-long list of books (read while digesting and/or having just a smidge more pumpkin pie). And if Thanksgiving’s over, that means it’s time to make up my holiday reading wishlist! (As in: I sure wish I had time to read all these books stacked all over my floor.)
The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf
My Girl-Who-Reads-Woolf project continues with a reread of her first novel, where Europeans travel to the wilds of South America for rest and recuperation, desperate (and doomed) love affairs, and many intense discussions on Life, Truth, and Connection (and the impossibility of same in today’s bourgeois world). Plus: a guest appearance by Mrs. Dalloway!
(LC Score: +1)
Landscape With Invisible Hand by M.T. Anderson
I’m a big fan of Anderson (especially his Pals in Peril series) and was excited to read this new YA novella about life on Earth after the arrival of the vuvv, an alien race that promises to deliver magical alien tech and a wonderful life for all. Not everything works out as planned, however, and it’s possible that Anderson is using this tale of alien invasion to comment on the dangers of imperialism and cultural appropriation. (SPOILER: That is DEFINITELY what he’s doing.) In fact, this would be a great conversation-starter (along with being a fun read) for middle and high schoolers as they are introduced to the (not so fun) idea of colonialism.
(LC Score: +1)
Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future by A.S. King
And this was another great YA read with something to say about today’s world. Glory has just graduated from high school and is trying to figure out her future and deal with the long-delayed fallout of her mother’s suicide. Plus, the other day she and her best friend decided to drink a petrified bat (that is not a typo) and now Glory is having visions of a near-future Second American Civil War, which starts as a backlash to the feminist movement. King explores loss and friendship (and the loss of friendship) in original and memorable ways.
(LC Score: +1)
This House is Haunted by John Boyne
“I blame Charles Dickens for the death of my father,” our Victorian narrator tells us in the opening sentence of this ghost story, as she explains how, after being orphaned, she was forced to become a governess and ended up in a strange empty mansion with her odd young charges and no other adults in sight. And YES, I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS, LET’S GO. Unfortunately, if you’re going to write about an isolated governess in a possibly haunted house, The Turn of the Screw sets a very high bar, and this story has too few surprises and drags on a bit too long to fulfill my initial excitement. (Also, when the governess tries to get help from the townsfolk because she’s living in a CLEARLY HAUNTED HOUSE THAT HAS ALREADY KILLED HER THREE PREDECESSORS they all treat her like she’s crazy, and I found that very annoying. IT’S SUPER OBVIOUSLY HAUNTED, PEOPLE.)
(LC Score: +1)
Slade House by David Mitchell
Haunted houses everywhere! This novella, a companion to Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks (and the extended universe he’s apparently creating across all of his novels), tells the story of Slade House, occupied by “soul carnivores” who must feed every nine years. We learn its secrets from a series of doomed narrators (the first one, an autistic boy, is especially compelling) as the house reappears briefly and then vanishes on its nine-year cycle, leading to mysterious disappearances among the locals. I enjoyed this, but it did feel more like a DVD-extra or bonus track (is there a term for the literary version of that?) than a strong, stand-alone story.
(LC Score: +1)
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
And while I’m reading about haunted houses, it must be finally time to tackle this massive piece of metafiction. I love this kind of epistolary-plus storytelling, where we have different narrators telling different sections of the story that may themselves take the form of letters, transcripts, diagrams, and everything else, so it’s no surprise that I was completely caught up in this tale of a not-so-ordinary suburban house with corridors that appear and disappear and change shape in very disturbing fashion. It wasn’t quite as scary as I was expecting — perhaps because I’ve heard so much about it and have read other works that were obviously inspired by it — although Chapter Nine did give me a headache. Still totally worth it.
(LC Score: +1)
The Whalestoe Letters by Mark Z. Danielewski
I don’t know if you’ve noticed this about me, but I’m something of a completist (see: my Alcott-adjacent reading project, my Georgia history reading project, my Bronte sister reading project, my Girl-Who-Reads-Woolf project, etc. etc.) so once I learned that Danielewski had published this addition to House of Leaves, containing material that was mostly already published in that book as an appendix but WITH SEVERAL ADDITIONAL PAGES I of course had to check it out. As it turns out, I couldn’t really tell the new stuff from the old. Probably not worth it (unless you’re a fellow obsessive), though it only took an hour or so to read so no big deal.
(LC Score: +1)
I Am Providence by Nick Mamatas
From the dismayingly Lovecraftian hallways of the House of Leaves we go to a murder mystery set at a Lovecraft convention in Providence, RI. It begins promisingly (and appropriately) with first-person narration from the corpse, who is inexplicably missing his face. As a long-term attendee of various science fiction conventions (only 269 days until DragonCon 2018, y’all!) I am always up for a literary glimpse of fandom, but Mamatas lost me when he depicted pretty much all of Lovecraft fandom as a sad, pathetic group of racist, sexist losers. Granted, Lovecraft himself was something of a racist, sexist loser, but that view ignores all of the recent amazing writing from diverse authors bringing Lovecraftian horrors to the modern world in creative and continually surprising ways. (See Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country and Ellen Datlow’s two anthologies, Lovecraft Unbound and Lovecraft’s Monsters, to name just a few.) When depicting fandom, the line between affectionate mockery and vicious satire can be hard to define (and varies with the eye of the beholder), but if you’re in the mood for a murder at a con, may I suggest Sharyn McCrumb’s Bimbos of the Death Sun — though I should warn you that younger readers may need to google ‘floppy disc’ and other 80s relics to understand certain plot points.
(LC Score: +1)
Henry David Thoreau: A Life by Laura Dassow Walls
So basically at this point I’m reading big thick biographies of Thoreau so I can put off finally reading Walden, which I’m not looking forward to but should really read because I’m doing this whole Transcendentalist thing right now and it’s an American masterpiece and I think of myself as a well-read person and all that. (I had to have read excerpts in high school, right? If so, I have completely blocked it out, which doesn’t make me eager to give it another go.) Whatever my motivations, though, I enjoyed this biography of the (often annoying) Thoreau. Walls is clearly a Big Fan, but she tells an engaging story and I appreciated her often insightful commentary on the Transcendentalist movement in general.
(LC Score: +1)
The Modern Tradition: An Anthology of Short Stories edited by Daniel F. Howard
The Short Story: Fifty Masterpieces edited by Ellen C. Wynn
I’m teaching a short story course next semester, which means I get to pick a bunch of stories for the syllabus! And I probably should have started figuring the list out earlier! Especially as it’s been a long long time since I’ve read most of these! That said, I’m enjoying my trip down short-story lane — I’ve read novels almost exclusively for the past couple of decades, but I think that’s going to change. These collections contain stories and authors that have stood the test of time, so I was rereading old standbys (“Young Goodman Brown”) and finally reading classics that I’ve never quite gotten around to (“The Metamorphosis”) and discovering authors that I’ve heard of but never read and it turns out they’re awesome and I should read more of their stuff immediately (Doris Lessing). Also it turns out that I’ve been confusing Flannery O’Connor with Carson McCullers and I actually kind of like O’Connor? (Another blow to my long-standing prejudice against Southern Gothic fiction.) Anyway, it’s possible that I’ve picked up another dozen or so anthologies (i.e., more books that I can possibly read before the start of next semester) to keep me busy over the holidays. (I appear to be in an even more obsessive mood than usual these days.)
[Editor's note: Ahem.]
(LC Score: +2)
Sadly, even with Thanksgiving break I was unable to keep up with all those due dates and my RETURNED UNREAD score for this week stands at a very disappointing -8. I feel like I owe my library branch an apology. (LC Score: -8)
Library Chicken Score for 12/5/17: 3
Running Score: 118 ½
On the to-read/still-reading stack for next week:
- The Evolution Man, Or How I Ate My Father by Roy Lewis (my dad has been bugging me to read this)
- Charles Dickens: A Life by Claire Tomalin (because my middle schoolers are reading Oliver Twist)
- Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life by Joan D. Hendrick (because I’m gradually moving from the Transcendentalists to the abolitionists)
- The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer (over 1000 pages of spooky and upsetting stories that almost certainly will not make it onto next semester’s syllabus!)
Stuff We Like :: 12.1.17
A new classics list that's actually diverse, why we should be worried about net neutrality, the psychological impact of silent reading, and more stuff we like.
It’s December!
Around the web
Ooh, I love this list of alternatives to books by Dead White Men.
A great (and upsetting) breakdown of why net neutrality matters to your everyday Netflix habit
I loved this: The beginning of silent reading changed Westerners’ interior life
This essay asks some good questions: Have white women colonized children’s literature? And if so, what can we do to change things?
At home/school/life
on the blog: You don’t have to teach geography to have kids who know geography
also on the blog: The Greenglass House is the perfect early winter readaloud
one year ago: An Ellis Island unit study
two years ago: Rebecca reviewed a curriculum designed to put the fun back in the holidays
three years ago: Mindful homeschool: I am thankful for my homeschool life
Reading List
After many, many recommendations, I am finally getting around to The Fifth Season, the first book in N.K. Jemison’s Broken Earth series, and I am already so hooked that I am hiding in the bathroom to finish a chapter. Please let it keep being this good.
I’m reading Othello with my AP English class, and I am completely obsessed this read-around with the idea that Iago is a stand-in for Shakespeare — he’s totally stage-managing the entire play, right down to creating the dialogue for people to say. This is weirdly fascinating to me — what could it mean if Shakespeare sees himself in Iago’s “motiveless malignancy?” One of my students really needs to write a paper about this.
Also in work-related reading: Plato’s Symposium, which is so much easier going than the Republic, especially when reading them back-to-back.
I have already bought two copies of this book to give as holiday presents.
At home
We’re moving on to Project Runway Junior season two! I’m also looking forward to getting through season 2 of Stranger Things, season 2 of Agent Carter, and season 3 of Broadchurch over the break, even though that seems pretty ambitious.
I am sort of hooked on this Civil War podcast. I have added another loop to my morning dog walk to fit in more listening time.
I do not feel ready for the holidays, but I am hoping making some tiny sufganiyot this weekend will help get me in the spirit.
A Start-Here Plan for New Homeschoolers
Kick off your homeschool life with a unity study, and you'll learn as much about your homeschool as about the topic you've chosen to explore.
We just started homeschooling, and honestly, I’m feeling overwhelmed. I don’t know where to start. Is there some kind of start-here strategy for new homeschoolers?
Well, a lot of people will tell you to research, research, research to find the curriculum that’s right for you — and you can find discussions all over the internet with people doing just that, obsessing over the details in this program versus that program and discussing how they’ve adapted or used a particular curriculum. There’s a lot of good information out there when you’re ready to start shopping, but I think it can feel intimidating to someone who’s just getting started homeschooling.
That’s why I’d actually recommend avoiding the whole curriculum buying process for at least the first six months of your homeschool life. It’s so easy to get bogged down in curriculum and methods and to miss out on one of the most important pieces of getting your homeschool up and running: the process of figuring out how your particular homeschool works best. Honestly, I think most people shouldn’t buy any curriculum that costs more than $50 during their first year of homeschooling. Really — how are you going to know what curriculum is right for your homeschool when you haven’t even had a chance to see your homeschool in action yet? It takes a few months just to find your homeschool’s rhythm and get comfortable with your new routine. It takes a few months to get to know your child as your student and yourself as your child’s learning facilitator. So instead of committing to a curriculum plan right away, I suggest skipping the big decisions and making it simple for yourself by opting to get your homeschool started with a unit study.
A unit study, you probably know, is basically just picking a topic that interests you and focusing on it. (When we started homeschooling back when my daughter was in 2nd grade, we started with a unit study on the constellations.) Depending on your child’s age and interests, you might choose any number of topics to explore: Minecraft, Jane Austen, evolution, bugs, westward expansion in the United States, baking, and art history are among the wild mishmash of possibilities we’ve explored through unit studies, but the possibilities really are endless. Start with one book, and see where it takes you — a unit study can be as big or as brief as your interest and can scale up or down to meet your child at her interest and ability level. (You can check out some unit study inspiration from the HSL archives here.)
There are a few advantages to the unit study approach for new homeschoolers. For starters, you can do it for free — or mostly free — with a little help from online resources and your library. For another, you can choose any topic that you and your child are both interested in, which will make the project more pleasant for both of you. With a unit study, you’ve got a narrow, clear focus that’s easy to build around, so you won’t have the burden of that “How will I ever learn everything I need to teach her?” stress. And best of all, a unit study gives you the opportunity to see how your child learns and works. Maybe she’s a terrific writer. Maybe she learns best when she’s making charts and graphs. Maybe she likes to take notes. You’ll also see where you’re a good facilitator: Maybe you’ll find that you’re looking forward to reading aloud, or you can’t wait for nature study every day. It’s fun to do something you’re both interested in every day, which will help both of you feel like your homeschool is off to a great start.
If you’re just starting homeschooling for the first time, the information you gain from engaging in this first unit study will be invaluable when you decide you’re ready to move on to curriculum shopping: If your daughter hates working on the computer, you’re not going to want to buy an online math curriculum. If she’s passionate about reading, you may want to look for a history plan that focuses on living books. Those are things you might not know if you jumped right into experimenting with curricula. Giving yourself a little breathing space before you dive in full-force can help you avoid making the kinds of mistakes that frustrate you, your student, and your homeschooling budget.
This Q&A was originally published in the fall 2015 issue of HSL.
Need help getting started? You can download our free New Homeschooler Cheat Sheet for a step-by-step guide to figuring out your happiest homeschool.
I Don’t Teach Geography
You don't have to use a curriculum to learn a lot about geography. Here's how Shell's family does it.
You don't have to use a curriculum to learn a lot about geography. Here's how Shell's family does it.
Someone who was worried about our decision to homeschool asked, “Do you teach geography?” Considering how much the person asking knew about geography, I have no idea where that came from. The problem with these kinds of questions is that the questioner does not realize that homeschooled kids can learn quite differently than their public school peers. So on one hand, I could answer truthfully, “No, I don’t teach geography.” But on the other hand, I could also answer, “My kids know a lot about geography.” My 11-year-old, especially, knows much more about geography than I did at his age. (And I went to public school!)
The question made me start thinking about how we have learned about geography because I have never bought a formal geography curriculum. I have never checked out a book from the library that would teach my kids map skills. But my son knows how to read a map, he knows all the continents and several of the country names in our world, and he even knows what kind of terrain exists in most places of the world. He even knows what the people and cultures of some other countries are like. How does he know all this, if I didn’t plan any lessons?
Well, when you are a curious, love-to-explore, documentary-watching, globe-and-map-using kind of family, you’re going to learn elementary geography and then some.
Here are just a few ways my kids have learned about geography without any formal lessons:
First of all, we own a globe. When we watch documentaries, we pull it out because we’re curious to know exactly where the place is that we’re seeing on the T.V. My eight-year-old, especially, loves to get the globe and find places on it.
We also own a lot of maps. We own a map of our state, and we’ve pulled it out when we’re traveling somewhere. We also own maps of all the states we’ve traveled to. During our trip out west, my eleven-year-old kept our Rand McNally Atlas by his side most of the way, often looking at it to see where we were. His younger brother looked over his shoulder.
Also, puzzles! We have a United States puzzle with the names and capitals of each state on it. We have a world map puzzle, and we also have a book of puzzles for each continent in the world. The boys love working on puzzles again and again, so these map puzzles are popular in our house.
I also snatched up a box of National Geographic U.S.A. ©1978 maps at a library book sale for $5. These were the same maps my dad owned when I was a girl, and I longed to look at them. I pestered him about them, but he would never let me touch them. Well, guess what? My boys and I pull them out whenever we want. They may be a little outdated, but they have gorgeous illustrations and details about each state’s history and recreational sites.
At some point while looking at our maps, I’ve briefly talked to the boys about the compass, legend and scale on the map. I’ve also told them about latitude and longitude. (This has also come up in discussions about how ships navigate the oceans.) I’m sure over the next few years, we’ll have plenty of other reasons to look at maps, so this will come up again. How can they not learn about it?
While we’re speaking about maps, I shouldn’t fail to mention Google Earth. My boys love exploring Google Earth. They have zoomed down to Mt. Everest and even found the beach we visited once in Florida. Also, they are constantly looking over my shoulder as I use Google Maps on my phone to navigate our way through unfamiliar places.
Learning about maps is just a small part of geography, though. Geography also has to do with the terrain and how humans interact with the landscape around them. I can’t think of a better way to learn about this (besides traveling) than through our daily dose of documentaries. Everyday at lunchtime, my husband, two boys and I watch part of a documentary. Most of what we watch are nature documentaries, but we also watch science and history documentaries. We occasionally watch travel shows or cooking shows that take us to other parts of the world too. (See below for a few recommendations.)
It would take a book-length blog post to describe what we’ve seen and learned through these documentaries. My boys have watched people in the Arctic ice fishing, native tribes in the Amazon hunt for food, and they’ve seen the ancient practice of fishing with cormorants in Asia. They know where the taiga, tundra, and the rain forests are located. They also know about the efforts of the North American Prairie Reserve, which we try to support when we can.
When I think about how I learned about geography in schools – through a textbook and drawing a map of my neighborhood – it’s no wonder that I didn’t truly appreciate this subject until I began to explore it in a different way with my kids. While I do plan lessons for reading, writing, math and history, geography – at least elementary geography – is easily learned by owning a few maps, being curious, watching documentaries, and reading interesting books about the world. I guess the one thing I’ve failed to tell the boys is “This is geography!” I think I’ll do that tomorrow.
DOCUMENTARIES WE LIKE
Many documentaries take you to other places and teach you about people, animals and the land they inhabit, but here are a few documentaries I especially recommend for your social studies and geography lessons.
If you watch only one documentary series about our planet and the humans that inhabit it, it should be this one: Human Planet (We found it on Netflix.)
The following are several series that I like to call the “Wildest Series.” These are some of the most educational documentaries we’ve ever watched, and we learned about wildlife we never knew existed. Look for these and others like them on Netflix.
Planet Earth is so popular that you’ve probably already seen it, but I couldn’t leave it off this list. It’s available now on Netflix.
See how humans have changed their planet in Generation Earth. If you love engineering, it’s a must see.
For a list of all the documentaries I recommend, see my Pinterest board.
Stuff We Like :: 11.24.17
Thanksgiving baking, the Russian Bronte sisters, investigating the zombie diseases of climate change, and more stuff we like.
Our mandatory Thanksgiving mishap: On Wednesday, I accidentally made my shortbread crust for the lemon bars out of the cornbread for Jason’s dressing. Oops. (They actually weren’t bad. I did have to make more cornbread, though.)
around the web
Why, yes, thank you I would like to read about Russia’s version of the Bronte sisters VERY MUCH.
And obviously I would also be VERY INTERESTED in reading about the challenges of writing a biography of the actual Brontes.
This is crazy and interesting in a terrifying way: the zombie diseases of climate change
at home/school/life
on the blog: Native American history reading lists for high school, middle school, and elementary school
also on the blog: We kicked off our Books for People Who Love Books series with ideas for readers who love Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time
one year ago: Gift ideas for people who love Norse mythology (must be that time of year)
two years ago: The truth about having it all
three years ago: Homeschooling isn’t always easy—so why do we do do it?
reading list
Some people bring a bottle of wine to Thanksgiving dinner, but your real friends bring you a copy of The RBG Workout: How She Stays Strong . . . and You Can Too! (Y’all, Justice Ginsberg is hard core!)
We always start a series this time of year to carry us through the holidays, and this year we’re rereading the Moomins, starting with The Moomins and the Great Flood.
I read a couple of comfort-y books while all the Thanksgiving cookery was going on: Winona of the Campfire (Campfire Girls earning badges—well, beads, but same idea), Strawberry Acres (poor relations inherit tumble-down country house!), and The Ivy Tree (imposters! inheritances! scheming!).
at home
We are having so much fun watching Project Runway Junior together. My son has even borrowed my sewing machine for some creations of his own. (No crop tops and skirts, though, he wants everyone to know!)
Thanksgiving break means lots of board games at our house! We played our old favorite (Adventure Time Munchkin—which is more fun if you get the expansion pack and your kids always let you play BMO) and Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle, which we got last year and really enjoy.
I feel like my life might not be complete until I have this paper clip holder for my desk. (I realize this is totally superficial, but isn’t it kind of fabulous?)
Great Books for Studying Native American History: Elementary
We’re highlighting some of the elementary books we think do a great job illuminating Native American history.
We’re highlighting some of the elementary books we think do a great job illuminating Native American history.
We couldn’t fit all of our favorite Native American history books in the fall issue of the magazine, so we’re running our favorite middle and elementary school books on the HSL blog. Today, we’re highlighting some of the elementary books we think do a great job illuminating Native American history. Add them to your U.S. History studies for a more inclusive study of the past, or use them as a jumping-off point for a study of Native Americans.
If you’d like a spine to structure your Native American studies around, I recommend The People Shall Continue by Simon J. Ortiz. With language subtly echoing the cadences of the Native American oral tradition, this short picture book traces the history of North America’s original inhabitants from the world’s creation to the present day. Though it’s a small book, it contains many jumping-off points for additional reading and discussion, and it manages to balance hope for and celebration of the People with a respectful treatments of the suffering and hardship that has been their history for most of the life of the United States.
I think everyone should follow up Little House in the Big Woods with Louise Erdrich’s The Birchbark House. Like Little House, The Birchbark House chronicles the work and celebrations of life through the seasons as seen by a young girl named Omakayas. Omakayas is a child of the Ojibwa people who live in an island in Lake Superior in the 1840s, and like young Laura, she both observes and participates in the rituals and routines of her family and community.
Joseph Bruhac’s Children of the Longhouse tells the story of life among the Mohawk Bear Clan from the perspective of two 11-year-old twins: brother Ohkwa’ri and sister Otsi:stia. Like The Birchbark House, it follows a seasonal cycle, the highlight of which is the big Tekwaarathon game — it’s a version of lacrosse with a sprawling field of play. There are a lot of lovely details here about how clan decisions are made, the different roles people play in the clan, and the traditional festivals and celebrations of the Mohawk people. I especially like that it highlights the importance of women in Mohawk society.
(And when you’ve read that, you’ll probably want to read more about Tekwaarathon and other Native American games, so pick up Bruhac’s Native American Games & Stories.)
Crossing Bok Chitto: A Choctaw Tale of Friendship and Freedom is a lovely story that touches on two dark slices of U.S. history. Martha Tom and her Choctaw community live on one side of Mississippi’s Bok Chitto River, which offers the promise of freedom to the slaves who live on the other side — if they can just get to the other side of the river, they’ll be free. Martha Tom befriends an enslaved boy named Mo, whose dream of freedom becomes urgent when his mother is sold to another plantation.
The Choctaw similarly come to the rescue in The Long March. The Choctaw have only recently been resettled by the Long March west, which led to much death and hardship for their people, but when they hear about the potato famine in Ireland, the Ahitabo Apat Okla — the potato-eating people — want to help. Young Choona can’t understand why his people would ever want to help the European people who have injured them so deeply, but his great-grandmother reminds him that it’s precisely because the Choctaw have suffered that they should help others: “We have walked our trail of tears. The Irish people walk it now. We can help them as we could not help ourselves.”
Eve Bunting’s Cheyenne Again focuses on another often-forgotten chapter of Native American-United States relations: the forced removal of Native American children to “Indian boarding schools” during the late 1800s. Young Bull is sent away to school where he learns to act, talk, look, and think like a “white man,” but his heart remains firmly connected to his heritage.
It’s hard to read about some topics with younger children because you’re constantly walking that fine line between informing and horrifying. I think Only the Names Remain: The Cherokees and the Trail of Tears does this really well — it doesn’t sugarcoat or soften the forced removal of thousands of people from their homes or the journey that would kill one out of four people who undertook it, but it maintains a matter-of-fact, informative tone that doesn’t add melodrama to the tragedy. Bealer quietly shows the ways in which the young United States made tragic choices that failed to live up to their new ideas of freedom and democracy.
Book Nerd: Library Chicken Weekly Scorecard (11.21.17)
Adventures with the Bloomsbury set, gossipy Edwardian servants, a delightful Victorian mystery, and more Library Chicken.
Welcome to the weekly round-up of what the BookNerd is reading and how many points I scored (or lost) in Library Chicken. To recap, you get a point for returning a library book that you’ve read, you lose a point for returning a book unread, and while returning a book past the due date is technically legal, you do lose half a point. If you want to play along, leave your score in the comments!
Happy Thanksgiving! All of us at Library Chicken HQ wish all of you a delicious turkey dinner (or vegetarian entree of your choice) and a stack of fresh library books to keep you occupied while you’re digesting. And now, to the books!
All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West
I love reading stories about older women who reach a point in their lives (after the children are grown) where they get to decide what they want to do without considering anyone else’s needs or feelings. (Maybe that says something about my life, after spending nearly 20 years as a stay-at-home mom. But nah, probably not.) This novel falls into that category: an 88-year-old matriarch, for many years a diplomatic and political hostess at her accomplished (and now deceased) husband’s side, is finally able to direct her own life. Predictably, her adult children are horrified by her choices. In the hands of another writer (maybe Angela Thirkell?), this could be a charming tale of eccentricity, with a pair or two of young folks getting married off along the way; as written by Sackville-West, it’s more contemplative and philosophical, but still charming. (LC Score: +1)
Behind the Mask: The Life of Vita Sackville-West by Matthew Dennison
After reading Virginia Woolf’s biography, I had to find a biography about the inspiration for Woolf’s Orlando, the scandalous Vita Sackville-West, who became a popular and successful author while juggling her many lovers. Unfortunately, I found Dennison’s narrative of Vita’s life often muddled and confusing, and while that may be a reflection of her admittedly confusing affairs, it’s hard to believe this lackluster biography could have been inspired by such a fascinating woman. I get the sense that Dennison doesn’t actually like Vita all that much. This was fine for an introduction, but I’ll have to go on the hunt for a book that does a better job of showing Vita’s charm and attractiveness. (LC Score: +1)
Below Stairs by Margaret Powell
Servants’ Hall by Margaret Powell
From the lady of the manor to the kitchen staff: as the subtitle will tell you, Below Stairs is “The Classic Kitchen Maid’s Memoir That Inspired Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbey.” Published in 1968, it was an immediate hit and led to Powell’s follow-up, Servants’ Hall. In this second book, Powell shares the story of a real-life “upstairs downstairs” romance (and eventual marriage) between a beautiful housemaid and the much older son of the house. Since this is not, in fact, a gorgeously produced BBC epic, things do not end well. (LC Score: +2)
Minding the Manor: The Memoirs of a 1930s English Kitchen Maid by Mollie Moran
Moran is a much more recent author; this memoir of her downstairs life wasn’t published until 2014, when the former kitchen maid turned 97 (!!!). I actually found Moran’s account more enjoyable than Powell’s better known books, perhaps because Moran herself is great fun and actually seems to like her fellow servants and (at least some of) her former employers. (LC Score: +1)
The Long Weekend: Life in the English Country House 1918-1939 by Adrian Tinniswood
Humph. I was all ready for more tales from the manor and the subtitle here led me to believe that this book would dive into the wonderfulness that was English country house life between the wars (which apparently was awesome, as long as you were white, titled, and rich, but hey, who doesn’t like to spend the occasional hour imagining themselves as one of the fortunate few at the local stately home), but instead it was mostly about ARCHITECTURE. With the occasional chapter on INTERIOR DESIGN. The Amazon description even says, “Drawing on thousands of memoirs, letters, and diaries, as well as the eye-witness testimonies of belted earls and bibulous butlers, Tinniswood brings the stately homes of England to life as never before,” but DO NOT BE FOOLED. I was promised “aristocratic soirées” and I got modernist layouts in Country Life. Not cool, Tinniswood, not cool at all. (LC Score: +1)
The Secrets of Wishtide by Kate Saunders
I’m giving up on the Edwardians and going back to hang out with the Victorians. In this mystery, widowed Laetitia Rodd acts as sleuth, investigating cases for her lawyer brother. Amy recommended this one and as usual, she was right! Now we just need Saunders to finish up the sequel. (LC Score: +1)
Library Chicken Score for 11/21/17: 7
Running Score: 116 ½
On the to-read/still-reading stack for next week
- This House is Haunted by John Boyne (my Halloween reading has finally made it to the top of the stack)
- Slade House by David Mitchell (another mysterious house from my fav Mitchell)
- House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (finally getting to this and I have no idea what to expect)
- The Opposite House by Helen Oyeyemi (I love a good theme)
Great Books for Studying Native American History: Middle School
A Native American history reading list for your middle grades homeschool, including fiction and nonfiction books.
We couldn’t fit all of our favorite Native American history books in the fall issue of the magazine, so we’re running our favorite middle and elementary school books on the HSL blog. Today, we’re highlighting some of the middle grades books we think do a great job illuminating Native American history. Add them to your U.S. History studies for a more inclusive study of the past, or use them as a jumping-off point for a study of Native Americans.
If you want a texbook-type spine for your study, the Bedford Series in History and Culture has several excellent books about Native American History, including The World Turned Upside Down: Indian Voices from Early America and Talking Back to Civilization: Indian Voices from the Progressive Era. I think these books do a great job choosing primary source documents to highlight, and middle school is exactly the right time to start dipping your toe into this kind of critical reading.
Similarly, Cavendish Square publishes the middle grades nonfiction series Peoples of North America, which captures the history and culture of different Native American tribes, including photographs, art, snapshots of daily life (in both history and modern times), and a traditional folk tale. Titles include The People and Cultures of the Apache, The People and Cultures of the Crow, The People and Cultures of the Huron, The People and Cultures of the Delaware, and The People and Cultures of the Inuit. A collection of these books makes an excellent (if not cheap) mini research library.
But I think fiction is often the most accessible way for middle grades readers to dig into history, so the majority of this list focuses on historical fiction. Joseph Bruhac has written several books about Native American history, but Hidden Roots is a particularly good pick for middle grades. In it, Sonny — a shy boy living in 1950s New York — discovers the dark side of his family’s Native American heritage, including the Native American Sterilization Program and its devastating effects on the Abenaki and Mohican people. This book is hard to read — I mean, obviously, it’s about genocide, and we have a big problem when that gets easy to read about — but it’s well done and sensitively balanced enough for most middle school readers to handle.
Similarly dark, How I Became a Ghost: A Choctaw Trail of Tears Story tackles another dark chapter in U.S. history, chronicling the forced removal of Native American tribes through the eyes of a 10-year-old boy who can see the future and knows that he —and many others — will die on the trail. That doesn’t matter so much, though, because ghosts have their own part to play in Native American life, and storytelling is part of that. The book is written by an Oklahoma Choctaw storyteller, and it’s heavily based on the stories of actual Choctaw people.
In the free verse novel Who Will Tell My Brother?, a part-Native American high school senior who has just begun to connect with his Native American roots, goes to battle against his school’s racist mascot. (Think the Washington Redskins or the Atlanta Braves.) It’s a quiet, powerful book that illuminates why it’s worth “making a fuss” about words we use and mascots we choose.
Indian Shoes reads like a series of glimpses into contemporary Native American life. In this collection of interrelated short stories (they read almost like vignettes), Ray — a half-Seminole, half-Cherokee boy who lives with his Grampa Halfmoon in Chicago.
Half-Lakota Jimmy McLean is the official protagonist of In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse, but Tasunke Witko (a.k.a. “Crazy Horse”) is the real hero of the book. Author Joseph Marshall (also a Lakota) paints him as a larger-than-life hero, a Luke Skywalker poised against the Galactic Empire of the United States. It’s an amazing story about a man who fought to protect his people and his culture from the encroaching United States. Crazy Horse’s story becomes a touchstone for Jimmy, who is struggling with being not-quite-Lakota and not-quite-standard-Caucasian.
Sherman Alexie is pretty much required reading for modern-day Native American studies, and his The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is already a classic. Junior wants to be a cartoonist, so he takes his learning into his own hands and enrolls in the town high school instead of the school on the Spokane Indian Reservation where he’s always gone. His new school comes with a big learning curve (and an Indian mascot), and the story is as much about the problematic experiences of modern-day Native American kids — where do they fit in? — as on Junior’s Everyteen experiences figuring out who he really is. An excellent book for more mature middle schoolers, though you may want to make sure it’s a good match for your particular kid.
The Trickster figure appears in many Native American tales, and the graphic novel Trickster: Native American Tales puts this mischief-making character front and center. Because it tries to include tales from across the continent, the collection feels a little mishmash-y, and some readers were put off by the simplicity of the tales and lack of sophistication in the artwork. Fair enough. But it’s a solid collection of stories from different tribes about the many manifestations of the Trickster, and I think a lot of middle schoolers would enjoy it.
Just for fun, check out the comic Super Indian, about a totally ordinary Reservation boy who develops superpowers after eating tainted government cheese. There are plenty of sly pokes at Native American stereotypes that kids will have fun pointing out.
Bonus: We Shall Remain isn’t a book, but this American Experience series (it includes five 90-minute episodes) is a fascinating look at three hundred years of U.S. history from the perspective of Native American peoples, from 1600s New England to the Civil Rights movement of the 20th century.
If you’ve got a reader who’s always ready for an excuse to hang with the gang from River Heights, one of these gifts might be a fun addition to your holiday wish list.