Our Favorite Homeschool Books of 2022
Here are the best books we read in our homeschool in 2022.
We are big readers over here, so we tend to read a lot of books. I read books because I want to read them, not with the idea that they need to fit into our curriculum somewhere, though some of them will end up on future reading lists. Many of the books we read are just fine, some are notably terrible, but there are always a few really great books that I want to tell everyone about. So consider this me telling everyone about these books. (The usual caveat: I read these books in 2022; they weren’t all published this year!)
My Picks
People sometimes comment that they wish I’d include reading levels on books, but as a reader, I’ve always found them weird and limiting. Why can’t I read a picture book on an airplane, or read a “grown-up” book to my preschooler? I’ve tried to indicate reading levels for some of these books, especially when there’s content that you might want to screen for younger readers, but this list is honestly all over the place in terms of recommended reading levels. (If you see a star in front of a title, it’s because that book is on my personal Best of the Best list.)
* Babel, Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution
In an alternate Oxford, translation is a magical act, and a Chinese orphan finds himself at the intersection of language, learning, and imperialism. This is a weird, dense, charming book that maybe isn’t for everyone, but it is probably the best book I read this year. (It has footnotes!)
A House Between the Earth and Moon
Suzanne recommended this to me as a company town book, only the company town is in space. A group of hopeful scientists in the near future take their work to a corporate space station, hoping that they can save the planet (and their own families) while making an oasis for billionaires. Of course, nothing goes according to plan, and every mistake is chronicled by the corporation’s omnipresent technology. I’m looking for a place to fit this in my high school reading lists.
The New Way to Cake
I’ve been very into baking this year — some years are like that! — and The New Way to Cake has joined Snacking Cakes at the top of my favorites list. I like the herby surprise of these recipes — sage adds an unexpected note to apple cake, mint kicks a ginger cake up a notch. (We made the custard donuts for our Thanksgiving this year, and they were a big hit!)
Marple
A dozen modern authors — including Naomi Alderman, Alyssa Cole, Elly Griffiths, and Karen M. McManus — bring their own spin to Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple in this short story collection. Some of the authors bring some interesting diversity and feminism to Miss Marple, while still channeling what feels like the authentic Marple charm. There are some hits and some not-so-much-hits, but I found the overall book a lot of fun.
* Blue: A History of the Color as Deep as the Sea and as Wide as the Sky
This picture book is gorgeous. And it’s one of the most antiracist picture books I’ve ever read, just because it doesn’t assume a white version of history. Exploring the history of blue, from the Egyptians wearing lapis lazuli to the blues singers of the U.S. South, this book is one I’m buying for every picture book reader in our circle and some people who think they’ve outgrown picture books, too.
The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
I’m recommending this new history of humanity to everyone. What if everything we think we know about human history is rooted in racism, ignorance, and greed? What if “uncivilized” people actually exhibit more characteristics we consider civilized than modern societies? David Graeber upends world history to give us a view of human history that’s ultimately so hopeful and empowering. Definitely a dense book, but I loved it.
Piranesi
This weird, slim volume is a specific kind of book: Piranesi spends his days mapping the mysterious house he inhabits, a labyrinth of rooms containing an entire ocean and many mysteries. The story is as meandering and slow to reveal itself as Piranesi’s house, but I found its dreamlike patience soothing and compelling.
Once More Upon a Time
A prince and princess cursed to forget their love go on a road trip to save their kingdom — and you’ll never guess what happens. This is a fun, frothy, utterly likable fairy tale.
* No One Is Talking About This
There is a baby with serious health problems in this book, which is something I like to know upfront. But if you can handle that, this is a book that I insisted Suzanne read immediately because I really wanted to talk about it. The narrator, a social media personality who travels around the world riding the wave of ideas and voices that make up “the portal,” goes offline when her sister’s pregnancy takes a turn for the tragic. The way this novel reads feels as fragmented and fascinating as the social media its narrator is surrounded by.
The Lion of Mars
This is a delightful middle grades book about an 11-year-old settler on a U.S. Martian colony. Bell can’t remember life before he came to the Martian settlement, and his life on Mars is full of routines and projects that keep the space station running. When a virus infects the settlement’s grownups, Bell and his fellow space kids have to figure out a way to save the day.
Ophie’s Ghosts
I’m putting this on my middle grades U.S. history reading list. Ophie has the power to see ghosts — something she learned when she saw her father right after he was attacked by white supremacists in the Jim Crow South. When she and her mother move to live with family and Philadelphia, Ophie finds an old house full of ghosts in search of resolution.
Build Your House Around My Body
Another Suzanne recommendation — this book tells the stories of two girls who go missing decades apart in Vietnam. They seem to have nothing in common, but as their stories unfold, it becomes clear that their fates are linked. I hear “story of two missing girls,” and my brain goes in a particular direction — toward a kind of book that I don’t love reading these days. Believe me when I tell you this book goes somewhere else entirely — a weird, surprising place that felt ultimately like exactly where I wanted to be.
Skin of the Sea
Natasha Bowen reimagines the mermaids of African mythology in this gorgeous YA novel. Simi is one of the Mami Wata who collects the souls of the drowned before blessing their journey home — a task that has become sadder and more dangerous with the ships carrying kidnapped and enslaved Africans across the ocean. When Simi saves a boy who has been thrown overboard, she must undertake a dangerous journey to make amends for violating the ancient decree that Mami Wata not save the lives of drowning victims. The only caveat I have is that this book ends on a giant cliffhanger, which is one of my readerly pet peeves.
The Chosen and the Beautiful
What if The Great Gatsby was retold from the perspective of a queer, Asian Jordan Baker who lives in a world of magic and supernatural forces? I know! This one’s going on my YA reading lists for sure.
I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness
Honestly, I don’t know how I feel about this book, but I have not been able to stop thinking of it since I finished reading it, and it’s been a long time since a book stuck with me like that. Partly about the tension between motherhood and creativity, partly about the Manson family cult, and partly about living with mental illness, this is a weird, weird book, and you should read it.This is one I’d probably only recommend to adult readers.
* The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred
OK, this book is brilliant, and it deserves a spot on your high school physics reading list. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein’s book is an intellectual history of the cosmos, as informed by particle physics, a memoir of her own life as a cosmologist and particle physicist, and an examination of racism and sexism in science and the history of science. It will blow your mind.
The Marvellers
I am loving the awesome new middle grades magic school books that I can recommend instead of Harry Potter. (See also Amari and the Night Brothers.) The magic school in The Marvellers is the Arcanum Training Institute, where Ella is the first Conjuror to ever enroll. Being the first is always hard, and a lot of the magical community is pretty distrustful of Conjurors, but Ella is finding her footing — and some friends — when things go terribly wrong.
White Smoke
Here’s the modern Gothic novel I was looking for all winter — Mari and her newly blended family move to a picture-perfect small town where her mom is the new artist-in-residence, complete with a shiny renovated house. But the house is on the gentrified edge of a neighborhood of dilapidated houses, and it’s full of haunted house tricks, like lights that turn off on their own and doors that open and shut unexpectedly. Even more suspiciously, Mari’s new stepsister has a new imaginary friend who doesn’t seem to like Mari very much. This is a fun YA read — but beware if you have bedbug anxieties!
* Light from Uncommon Stars
Another book I’ve raved about — this one I’m handing out to my high schoolers left and right because it’s so life- and self-affirming. I can’t explain what it’s about — there’s a trans violinist who plays video game music, a musician who made a deal with the devil, a family of aliens who run a Los Angeles doughnut shop — but please just believe me that it’s a book you’ll probably be glad you read.
* Pretty as a Picture
Please let this be the first book in a series! Extreme introvert film editor Marissa Dahl takes a job on a top-secret set for a legendary director and finds a mystery: The actress playing the murder victim is murdered right on set. Two teens with a true crime podcast enlist Marissa’s help solving the murder. I think this would be a great addition to a YA mysteries reading list, even though it’s not shelved as a YA book.
Gallant
In this eerie middle grades fairy tale, orphaned Olivia returns to her mother’s family home, where dark magic is afoot. I know a lot of middle grades books lean heavily into action, but I liked the slow, introspective pace of this one.
* The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea
I loved this gorgeous Korean folktale retelling. Mina saves the girl her brother loves — the most beautiful girl in the village — from being tribute to the Sea God by throwing herself in the water instead. Beneath the waves, she finds a strange new world and new allies. I’ve already added this to our high school reading list.
The Anomaly
I just thought this was fun: In 2021, a plane lands in New York twice — once in March and again in June. All the people on board, who believed they had double lives, now really do have double selves. Do they prove the universe is a simulation? Are they a second chance? Does any of it even matter? And what if another plane lands?
* Snake Falls to Earth
I know I raved about this one on the podcast, too. I loved it, though — I’ve already reread it, I liked it so much. This one’s on the middle grades reading list! And maybe the high school list, too.
Gideon the Ninth
Tamsyn Muir writes the weirdest books! Orphaned indentured servant teams up with the Ninth Necromancer on a mission for the Emperor, designed to pit all the Houses against each other in a battle of wits and skill. This book has A LOT happening, but it’s one of the most vividly imagined fantasy worlds I’ve been to in a long time.
Serwa Boateng’s Guide to Vampire Hunting
Here’s a middle grades vampire novel that leans into African mythology in the coolest ways. This is the first in a series, so there’s a lot of set-up, but I had to put it on the list because I can’t wait to read the next one.
A Psalm for the Wild-Built
Suzanne recommended this to me as a comfort book after we lost one of the moms in our homeschool community. She was a gorgeous, brilliant, compassionate human being, and we loved her. This was the perfect book for reminding me that it’s the depth and beauty of human connection that we mourn when we lose someone. We mourn because those feelings are real and they matter. I don’t know if that’s what this book is about, but for me, that’s what it will always mean.
Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origin of Species
This has been a highlight of my evolutionary biology class this semester (see below), and I understand why: This group biography focuses on the people whose scientific discoveries led to the modern theory of evolution. I love this book because it’s about people actually doing science and about how scientific theories change and develop as people add new understanding. I’m always trying to remind students that science is a work in progress that they’re participating in — not a list of already-figured-out things they just have to memorize.
Matrix
I will always read a book about Eleanor of Aquitaine. This one is mostly about one of Eleanor’s ladies of the court, Marie de France, who is sent to England to be the prioress of an abbey there, a job for which she turns out to be extraordinarily well-suited. I think this would be a great addition to a high school medieval reading list.
The Upstairs House
Suzanne did not warn me that there are Babies in Peril when she recommended this book, so I am warning you — but other than that, she was right: This novel about a woman coping with postpartum depression and an unfinished dissertation who finds an apartment upstairs where the (late) children’s book author Margaret Wise Brown is living is weirdly compelling.
Anxious People
I feel like sometimes I just want a book where people turn out to be kinder and better than you think they are. This book, about a botched robbery, is exactly that.
Within These Wicked Walls
On the podcast I called this a “kind of supernatural African Jane Eyre,” and I stand by that.
* The Space Between Worlds
The multiverse is real. The catch is that you can’t travel to any world where you’re alive — which means that marginalized people, who are more likely to die from illness, crime, abuse, or poverty, make the best inter-world travelers. Cara is only alive in eight of the almost 400 worlds known to exist, so she’s plucked from poverty in the Wastelands to a prosperous life and a powerful job. When another one of her selves is murdered, Cara discovers that the multiverse is even more complicated than she realized.
The Man Who Died Twice
The Thursday Murder Club is so much fun! I want to be part of a geriatric Scooby gang when I retire. In this one, former secret agent Elizabeth has to solve the mysterious murder of another former spy, her ex-husband.
My College Kid’s Picks
My homeschool guinea pig says she only included books she read for fun, and there weren’t a lot to choose from because she had gigantic piles of reading to do for her classes this past year. Fair enough!
Crumbs
This is a sweet little graphic novel about finding yourself — and a little love, too.
The Last Session
Other Dungeons & Dragons fans will appreciate this story of a high school D&D group trying to finish their unfinished first campaign before their college graduation.
What Is Home, Mum?
We all know that home is people and traditions as much as a place, but this book is a really beautiful reminder of all the ways that is true.
A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking
My mom thought I would like this book about a teenage wizard who bakes up magic, and she was right.
My High School Kid’s Picks
My teen also opted for books they read purely for fun this year, but they assure me that doesn’t mean they didn’t enjoy the books we read together.
Accidental Gods: On Race, Empire, and Men Unwittingly Turned Divine
Why is history full of people being turned into gods? (Hint: Some of it might be because of colonialism.)
Queer Ducks (And Other Animals)
This YA book is all about same-sex relationships in nature — ducks, sure, but also albatrosses, clownfish, and doodlebugs. Nature is gay, and here’s the science to prove it.
My Volcano
This is a very weird novel with intersecting storylines, including a time traveling boy who witnesses the fall of the Aztec empire, a trans writer trying to finish a sci-fi story set on an impossible planet, and a Mongolian farmer who becomes a sentient green cloud creature that wants to connect to every other living thing. My kid won’t stop raving about it.
Out of Your Mind
My child is majorly into Alan Watts this year.
Bonus: Our students at the Academy vote on their favorite assigned books each semester — these are the ones that got the most votes in 2022.
The Academy Junior High Picks
The Academy High School Picks
(We’re Amazon affiliates, so if you purchase something through an Amazon link, we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Obviously this doesn’t influence what we recommend, and we link to places other than Amazon.)
Need a new series for winter readaloud season? We have a few ideas.