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52 Weeks of Happier Homeschooling Week 21: Quit Something

52 Weeks of Happier Homeschooling Week 21: Quit Something

What's not working for you?

By this time of year, most of us have found a rhythm. Sure, there are bumps and bad days and the occasional routine shake-up, but mostly, we know what our typical homeschool day is going to look like—which is why now is the perfect time to pay attention to what’s not working in your homeschool.

Maybe it’s that Tuesday afternoon park day that you’re always stressed trying to make it to on time and where that braggy mom is always making you feel like you’re homeschooling wrong. Maybe it’s the history curriculum that everybody grumbles through, so much so that you never seem to actually get to history anymore. Maybe it’s starting the day with math, which seemed like such a good idea when your friend suggested it but which has gotten pretty much every day this month off to a grumpy start. Maybe it’s your pottery classes, or your current readaloud, or the co-op that just doesn’t feel like a good fit anymore. Whatever it is, it’s time to bid it farewell.

We tend to think of quitting as a negative—it’s like giving up, right? We want to be people who follow through on what we start, especially if we’ve committed money, or time, or energy to a project. Shouldn’t we see it through to the end? But sometimes quitting can be a great thing. Quitting something that isn’t working frees you up to find something that is working better, something that you really love instead of something thatyou’re just trudging through. 

Your mission this week: Pinpoint something that isn’t working in your homeschool—it can be as big or small as you want—and quit it, guilt-free.


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New Books: Alterations

Alterations
By Stephanie Scott
 

You’ve seen Sabrina, right? (The Audrey Hepburn flick where she plays the chauffeur’s daughter in love with the son of the family who employs her dad? If you haven’t, you are missing out, and you should probably go watch it now.) Scott wrote Alterations as a kind of 21st century YA take on Sabrina, and in terms of frothy, fashion-y fun, it works as a pretty successful homage. 

Amelia has spent her life living on the Laurenti family estate, where her abuelita works as the family’s chef. Amelia has grown up watching handsome, popular Ethan—and his brother Liam—from afar, dreaming of the day when her crush will finally notice her. But Amelia’s abuelita thinks it’s time for Amelia to find a life away from the Laurentis, and she sends off Amelia’s discarded application to a prestigious New York City summer fashion program for teens. Though she’s nervous at first, soon Amelia is living the Project Runway life, shopping at Mood, making her designs work, and even showing an evening gown on the runway at the end of the program. More importantly, she’s making friends, boosting her confidence, and finally—though not without a few snags and some back-pedaling—coming into her own. (This was the best part of the book.) When she returns home, she’s a different girl from the shy, insecure girl she used to be—and Ethan finally notices her. But, as it turns out, Amelia’s long-time crush may not actually be the Laurenti brother she really wants to be with.

This is definitely a predictable teen romance, but if you like that kind of thing—and I do sometimes—it’s a pretty charming one. Amelia learns to define herself by much more than whoever she happens to have a crush on at a given time, and her friendships are just as important to the story as her love connections. I like that she makes mistakes (like lying to a new friend that Ethan is her boyfriend in a moment of stupidity), accepts and apologizes for them, and moves on. And I think her relationships with her mom and her grandmother feel warm and realistic. I did feel that the second half of the book dragged after Amelia came home from NYC—that part just wasn’t as interesting to me as the fashion school arc, and it seemed to take needlessly long for Amelia to realize that Liam was the Laurenti for her. But this is the kind of book I’d read by the pool or in the hammock, when what you want is something light and cheerful that you know will leave you with a happy ending. It’s fun, and sometimes that’s just what I want from a book.


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Stuff We Like :: 2.24.17

home|school|life’s Friday roundup of the best homeschool links, reads, tools, and other fun stuff has lots of ideas and resources.

You may have noticed that we updated a few things on the website a little this last week. I’m especially happy to have added a poem of the week and a running reading list in the right sidebar.

around the web

Relevant to my life: How to avoid being psychologically destroyed by your newsfeed

Also relevant to my life: The strange history of compulsive book buying

Because I pretty much always like Ursula Le Guin being awesome, apparently.

I totally agree with this. Academic jargon forever! (I am still going to roll my eyes at people who say “problematize,” though. Sorry! It doesn't mean your point isn't interesting!)

I love random laws that somehow never get repealed. 

 

at home/school/life

on the blog: I loved Shelli’s post on how her homeschool life gave her space to explore a project of her own.

on the podcast: You guys, episode 10 fell into the existential despair crack (I think it’s next to the crack where all our pencils end up—I like to picture them wearing eraser berets and muttering about the burdens of the camel phase to each other), but episode 11 is up!

one year ago: Lisa meditates on the sound we all pause for: silence

two years ago: A child with a half-empty glass

three years ago: Flashback to our first cover

 

reading list

I’ve had American Youth on my list for several years now and finally got around to actually reading it. For me, it was a difficult book—good, but difficult. It’s about a lot of things: identity, truth, being a teenager, the gun debate. Next up (also from the finally-getting-around-to-it list): Jean Rhys’s Voyage in the Dark. And, of course, I’m rereading the delightful 84 Charing Cross Road for the podcast.

I picked up a copy of Razia and the Pesky Presents (I found it on this list of kids’ books to help fight Islamophobia ), and we loved it. I didn’t even know there was a woman sultan, and I loved the feminist storyline (even though some of the specifics were inventions and not historical facts).

Up next in the readaloud queue: Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom

 

in the kitchen 

I always end up making some kind of egg dish when people insist on eating even though I am not interested in cooking, so I am happy to report that all those hungry people dug these skillet-baked eggs with spinach and yogurt.

Cookie of the week: Almond Cloud Cookies

 

at home

I’m trying to convince Jason that we need to take a road trip to the Biltmore so that I can see this exhibition. Doesn’t it look awesome?

We started watching Legion, and I have no idea what’s going on but I cannot look away.

Everyone here is busy planning Purim costumes. (I think only once in all my years of parenting have my children opted to wear their Halloween costumes again for Purim. But I do love that we have an excuse to dress up twice a year!)


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Time for You: Mama’s Bread Project

Don't let your kids have all the fun! Shelli puts her project-based learning skills to work learning something she's always wanted to know how to do, and it's just as amazing as she hoped it would be.

Don't let your kids have all the fun! Shelli puts her project-based learning skills to work learning something she's always wanted to know how to do, and it's just as amazing as she hoped it would be.

I had always wanted to learn how to bake bread, but I never got around to it until my family and I watched a documentary series titled Cooked, and one of the episodes was on bread. In that show, I learned that it was possible to grow your own wild yeast, and this sounded so cool that I had to try it.

I spend a lot of time supporting my boys’ projects, and I thought it was time for me to have a project of my own. I ordered a book on how to bake artisan breads. I watched countless videos on YouTube about growing wild yeast and baking bread. And then, I did grow wild yeast. It was so cool. And then, I did bake bread with it. I was proud of myself. My family supported my endeavor, and they eagerly tried the bread.

I spent several months on this project, and I enjoyed learning about this ancient practice of baking bread. When my son and I read the part in the Little House series about how Ma Ingalls made sourdough biscuits, we were so excited to know exactly what this meant. I had a sourdough culture downstairs on my kitchen counter bubbling right then.

During this project, I encountered many people online who also grew their wild yeast and loved baking bread. I learned a lot of tips from Twitter friends, and I even inspired a local couple to try making bread this way when I wrote about it in my newspaper column.

My husband almost always liked the breads I made, even if they weren’t perfect, but over time, my bread got better and better. I was never able to bake that perfect rustic loaf with those big holes in it that I had imagined in the beginning, but I was happy with what I was doing. Despite this, I finally threw the sourdough culture away, and I switched to store bought yeast.

Why? Well, a few reasons. First, my boys never loved the bread, and it was a lot of work. You have to constantly feed your sourdough culture and pamper it like a well-loved pet. I know I could have stored it in the refrigerator, but then I’d have to get it out two to three days before I was going to bake bread and feed it until it was ready. How did I know that in three days I’d feel like baking bread? 

Our homeschooling lifestyle offers a lot of flexibility, but I finally decided that I was just too busy to keep up with the wild yeast. Besides that, I felt satisfied. I did what I set out to do: learn how to bake bread. And after going to the trouble to use a sourdough culture, using store bought yeast seemed easy peasy.

This whole experience made me understand how and why my boys’ projects sometimes peter out. Once you feel like you’ve mastered a process, or at least learned a sufficient amount to understand it well, it feels extremely satisfying, and sometimes, that’s all you need to do. However, you’ll always carry the knowledge of what you learned, and you’ll continue to do the things that you love the most.


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Topics in History: Investigating Watergate

How did a break-in at a campaign office lead to the resignation of the President of the United States? This list of resources will help you investigate this chapter of U.S. history.

The scandal that made the -gate suffix a political standby saw its last legal headlines more than 40 years ago, when former U.S. Attorney General, John N. Mitchell and former White House aides H. R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman were each sentenced to 2.5 to 8 years in prison for conspiracy and obstruction of justice. Now’s the perfect time to dig into the historic cover-up that permanently altered our perception of politicians.

Read

All the President’s Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein :: Developed from the series of articles Woodward and Bernstein wrote for the Washington Post during the Watergate years, All the President’s Men was published just a few months before Nixon’s resignation and was instrumental in turning public opinion against the president. 


Watergate by Fred Emery :: Emery was the Washington bureau chief for the London Times during the Watergate scandal. In this exhaustive book, Emery gives a blow-by-blow account of the scandal, drawing mainly on the Nixon tapes. 


The Leak: Why Mark Felt Became Deep Throat by Max Holland :: Max Holland makes the case that Woodward and Bernstein’s source did not feed them information out of a sense of conscience but rather out of resentment that he had been passed over by Nixon for the top position at the FBI. 


The Haldeman Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House by H.R. Haldeman :: H.R Haldeman was Nixon’s Chief of Staff and kept these detailed diaries between 1969 and 1973,when he was forced to resign amid Watergate controversy. 


Watch

All the President’s Men (1976) :: Journalism has probably never looked as glamorous as it does in this film, based on the book of the same name, starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as Post reporters Woodward and Bernstein. 


Frost/Nixon (2008) :: Nixon’s mannerisms and prickly personality have been parodied many times, but Frank Langella lends a humanity and pathos to the role of the shifty president. Based on the series of interviews David Frost conducted with an at times unsettlingly candid Nixon in 1977, Frost/Nixon reveals the paranoia which was to be so central to the Watergate scandal.  


Listen

NixonTapes.org
Between 1971 and 1973, Nixon secretly recorded 3,700 hours of conversation in the White House. The tapes, which eventually helped lead to his resignation, give rare insight into the workings of power and Nixon’s complicated motives for covering up the scandal.

This post is excerpted from an article originally published in the winter 2015 issue of home/school/life. 


Jeremy Harris writes about books, music, and travel. He grew up in new Zealand but feels at home in the States.

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Sometimes OK Is Good Enough

The OK days are part of homeschool life, and we should give them more credit than we do.

Sometimes OK is good enough when homeschooling gets hard

Like a lot of folks, I’ve struggled with figuring out how to adjust to a new routine that suddenly includes daily phone calls to my representatives and compulsively checking NPR’s news blog every five minutes. But even when life felt more normal, there were times when I felt like I was totally rocking the whole homeschool life—and times when I just wasn’t.

When we talk about homeschooling, we tend to be earnest—or at least I do. I want to do better, pretty much all the time: I want better resources, better books, a better rhythm, a better experience for my kids… And I think this kind of striving is important. For me, it’s part of what homeschooling is about. But it’s also a recipe for failure because while I may be on a steadily-getting-better-trajectory when it comes to the big picture (and gosh, I hope I am), there are plenty of days where I am just plain OK.

I’m not talking about bad days, where clearly I could do better and, say, not try to convince my kids that we should take (another) day off when they are begging to do math or get all snooty about my daughter’s citations instead of helping her sort through her sources. (Not my proudest moment.) I’m not talking about the days where the kids wake up grumpy, and I have to choose between battling with them to accomplish anything or feeling guilty about letting them play video games all day. The bad days aren’t fun, but they remind me to appreciate the good days. No, I’m talking about the days where we do manage to get though the majority of our routine, where I plug in and the kids plug in, and we muddle through together—but really, we all know that it was just an OK day. Nobody was brilliant. I wasn’t especially entertaining or engaging, and the kids didn’t have any amazing insights or witty revelations. We just kind of made it through. I think those days deserve a little more respect.

Yes, of course, homeschooling can be an amazing, magical experience that makes you feel like your life is blooming all around you. There are days like that, and they are wonderful. They are what keep us going on the days when nothing goes right and we need to remember why we got ourselves into this mess in the first place. But there are plenty of days that are just good enough—not particularly great, not terrible, just OK. Sometimes there are a lot of these days in a row. For me, there are a lot of these days in a row right now. And instead of sighing over the missing magical moments, I’m trying to appreciate the everyday OK-ness of my homeschool life. Because while striving to be better is part of homeschooling, so, I think, is being comfortable with where you are. And where we are right now is an OK place.


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52 Weeks of Happier Homeschooling Week 20: Ask for Help

52 Weeks of Happier Homeschooling Week 20: Ask for Help

I don’t know about you, but when we started homeschooling, I actually thought the housework part of life would get a little easier. After all, we would all be home all day—surely that would making keeping up with the dishes/laundry/bathroom cleaning a little easier, right?

Nope. At least not for us. Homeschooling didn’t give me more housework time—it just meant we were home to make bigger and more exciting messes. I’ve accepted the fact that homeschooling and a shiny clean house don’t go together for everyone, but if we want to have a happy homeschool, it’s also important to recognize that the burden of housework should not fall on one person’s shoulders.

Even very young kids can help with things like sorting laundry or tearing up lettuce for a salad, and older kids can take ownership of tasks from start to finish. It makes sense to collaborate on this. Sit down with your kids and make a list of all the housework that has to get done every day, then figure out together a fair way to divide it up. Be clear about expectations—what, specifically, does picking up the family room entail?—and deadlines—should work be finished before lunch or before bedtime? Be open to changing things as you go along. Treat it like any homeschool project—a work in progress that you’ll figure out together. Don’t think of it assigning chores: Instead, treat housework as a shared responsibility that everyone participates in. Between reminders and overseeing and that never-ending to-do list, you might only squeeze out 30 minutes of free time a day from letting your kids take on some of the daily duty—but hey, that’s 30 minutes, and as you settle into your new routine, that time may grow.

And don’t think divvying up the housework list is just for you: Researchers at the University of Minnesota found that helping with household tasks is the number-one predictor for future success—more than IQ, more than extracurricular activities, more than social status. 

Your challenge this week: Sit down with your kids to plot a new daily schedule that lets everyone share in the everyday household duties. Try to take at least one task completely off your to-do list.


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Bespoke Book List: Great STEM Biographies for Kids

Great STEM Biographies for Kids

One of my pet peeves book-wise is the lack of good biographies for kids. Unless you want to read about Justin Bieber or someone from the 1850s, there just aren’t a lot of good options out there. So I was pretty darn thrilled when I discovered that Lerner Publications had launched a series of biographies that focus on modern day STEM professionals, including (gasp!) some pretty cool women. These are some of the modern innovators you can meet:

JANE MCGONIGAL
Who she is: a video game designer who believes gaming can make the world a be􏰁er place. her best-known games include EVOKE, Superstruct, World Without Oil, Cruel 2 B Kind, and The Lost Ring.
Read all about her in: Alternate Reality Game Designer Jane Mcgonigal by Anastasia Suen

SEBASTIAN THRUN
Who he is: The guy who invented some of today’s most buzzworthy robotics, including Google glasses, robotic mapping, and the Google self-driving car— he’s also the founder of the Google X lab.
Read all about him in: Google Glass and Robotics Innovator Sebastian Thrun by Marne Ventura

NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON
Who he is: The question isn’t so much who the director of the Hayden Planetarium and popular astrophysicist is, but why it’s taken so long for someone to write a biography of him.
Read all about him in: Astrophysicist and Space Advocate Neil DeGrasse Tyson by Marne Ventura

CATERINA FAKE
Who she is: One of the celebrated women of silicon valley, she’s the brains behind super-popular community photo-sharing website Flickr and creator of the decision-making website Hunch.
Read all about her in: Flickr Cofounder and Web Community Creator Caterina Fake by Patricia Wooster

TONY FADELL
Who he is: One of the fathers of the iPod, Fadell is the techie who came up with the more-than-a-music-player’s distinctive look and functionality and the Wi-Fi enabled, learning-programmable Nest Labs thermostat.
Read all about him in: iPod and Electronics Visionary Tony Fadell by Anastasia Suen

This reading list was originally published in the spring 2014 issue of HSL.


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Stuff We Like :: 2.17.17

home|school|life’s Friday roundup of the best homeschool links, reads, tools, and other fun stuff has lots of ideas and resources.

Are you going to the SEA homeschool conference this spring? Suzanne and I will be there from June 1-4 giving away copies of HSL and feeling socially awkward, so please stop by and say hi if you’re there!

around the web

Just when the weight of the world feels like too much to bear, someone makes a list of book-ice cream pairings, and you know you’ll make it through.

I really love these alternative approaches to high school math.

I have so many feelings about the new James Baldwin documentary, but the main one is that everyone should go and see it.

Ursula Le Guin on "alternative facts" versus science fiction

 

at home/school/life

on the blog: A big woo-hoo to Shelli who wrapped up her year-long citizen science project with this week’s post. And Oak Meadow's winter sale is going on through the 28th!

one year ago: Rebecca reviews a curriculum for young philosophers

two years ago: Why boredom is an important part of learning

three years ago: Simple strategies to turn around a bad homeschool day

 

reading list

I’m rereading Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency so that I can watch the new television series, and I’d forgotten what a pleasure it is to make fun of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

I love when you think you’ve read everything by an author and then discover that nope, in fact, you are wrong, and there is another book. So I was delighted to discover Mischievous Meg by Astrid Lindgren, and we’ve been enjoying it as a readaloud.

My 9-year-old is reading The Wonderful Adventures of Nils. My daughter is being horrified by The Jungle for U.S. History and reading Fangirl for fun.

 

in the kitchen

Now that we’ve actually gotten back to some semblance of routine after the Tragic Ankle Breaks of 2015, I’m finding my way back to the kitchen on a regular basis. My kids mock me relentlessly, though, because I always fail Taco Tuesday—I plan tacos for Tuesday every week but something always goes sideways and we end up having them a different night. We did not have them on Tuesday, but these beef picadillo puffy tacos were much enjoyed anyway.

It’s definitely still comfort food season, and this wild rice-mushroom soup hits the spot.

Cookie of the week: Salty oatmeal chocolate chunk cookies

 

at home

I’m having trouble finding balance between staying informed and active politically (which feels important to do right now) and staying sane and available to my everyday cooking-dinner, reading-books-together, doing-the-laundry (who am I kidding? I would take any excuse to skip the laundry) life. Political happenings are like chicken pox—I’m just constantly aware of them in an uncomfortable kind of way, so much so that the rest of my life suffers, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. And yet, how can I not pay attention every minute? How are you guys handling this? Is this just the new normal?

I’ve been watching Ken Burns’ The West while I knit at my Heaven and Space. (I love patterns like this that are almost-but-not-quite brainless, and really, who can ever have enough scarves?)


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Citizen Science Project #12: Flu Near You

Citizen Science Project #12: Flu Near You

Not only was my family sick over our winter vacation in December, my kids are sick again now, a month later, and so am I. Sigh. But, I found the perfect citizen science project to go along with my sore throat. 

Flu Near You is a tool that allows individuals to report and track infectious diseases. It was created by epidemiologists at Harvard, Boston Children’s Hospital and The Skoll Global Threats Fund because tracking flu symptoms is slow when they rely on doctor’s offices to do the reporting. Many people don’t even visit the doctor when they have flu-like symptoms.

If you sign up with Flu Near You, your personal information will remain completely confidential, and your report will be anonymous to the researchers. Once a week, you’ll receive an e-mail reminding you to report any symptoms—or no symptoms—that your family is experiencing.  Even if you don’t think you have the flu, but you have a sore throat, you should report that. You cannot know for certain if you have the flu unless you visit a doctor, so Flu Near You does not expect you to know exactly what you have. You simply click on any symptoms. They have recently added more symptoms so that they can identify potential outbreaks of other diseases, such as Zika, Chikungunya, or Dengue fever.

It only takes a minute to make the report. Flu Near You will collect these reports and list them on a map that you can access on their website. This way, you’ll know if there is a flu outbreak where you are traveling to or in your local area. If there is, you can take extra precaution.

I signed up for Flu Near You, and they only asked me for my e-mail address, birthdate, gender, and zip code. I was able to add other family members using nicknames, but this was optional. When reporting, I simply click on any symptoms we have (or “no symptoms”) and then click “report.” It was that easy.

Learn more about Flu Near You by clicking on this link.

 

And that’s my year of citizen science projects! Thank you to everyone who has been following along. 


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Sponsored Post: Adjusting to Homeschooling Mid-Year with Oak Meadow

Making the decision to switch gears and begin homeschooling partway through the school year takes courage and faith. Whatever you were doing before wasn’t working, and whatever you are beginning hasn’t had time to feel routine yet. Here are ten suggestions to ease the way, whether you’re homeschooling independently or enrolling in Oak Meadow’s distance-learning program:

1. Different philosophy; different approach. Students who have been in school have likely become accustomed to an institutional approach where work is prescribed to the class as a whole and the teacher’s attention is divided among many students. Shifting to a creative thinking approach can be challenging for a student who just spent last semester trying very hard to figure out how to succeed in an institutional setting. In contrast, Oak Meadow’s approach is flexible and creative, and homeschooling can often allow for one-on-one support between parent and child. Switching gears to this degree is quite an adjustment and might bring stress or frustration. Be understanding and acknowledge those differences as needed.

2. Commit to riding out the transition. There is a progression in learning as your child adjusts, but it may take a few weeks or more to be able to look back and clearly see the progression. Don’t expect to see results right away. Trust the process and really commit fully to seeing it through for six weeks or so before you assess whether it is working for your child. Learning really does take place, even if it might not feel that way in the moment, and a few weeks’ perspective can make all the difference in understanding.

3. Go easy on yourself and your child. You’ve just left behind an educational environment that wasn’t working for some reason, and now you’ve switched to an entirely different approach. During this adjustment phase, don’t get too caught up in whether every single item was done properly in each lesson. What’s the main concept or what are the key skills being addressed? What is most important for your child to grasp before moving on to the next lesson? Make that your focus, and give everyone points for effort as you navigate this new way of learning. Students beginning mid-year may need to go back to previous lessons if they aren’t understanding something in the current lesson.

4. Consider downshifting or deschooling. Your child might need to ease into the new model slowly, and some children, particularly those who experienced trauma in their previous school experience, will benefit from a period of “deschooling.” This can be like an extended vacation from school, with plenty of nourishing rest, time to daydream, healthy activities of the child’s choosing, and supported emotional processing. It can be very helpful for some students to have a buffer like this between leaving their old school and beginning homeschooling. Often they will let you know when they are ready to jump back in again.

5. Keep good boundaries with those in your life who resist the idea of homeschooling. Even well-meaning loved ones can undermine confidence by demanding evidence or reassurance that your new educational plan is “working.” It is fine to say things are going well without elaborating. Let your child know that you will be keeping his or her educational details private. This allows your child to relax and focus on learning without worrying about what the relatives or neighbors might be thinking.

6. Structure and support are key. Set up a solid daily and weekly routine as a starting point. You may need to adjust it many times, but begin with a strong plan. It is easy to get sidetracked, so do your best to stick to the plan. Set aside focused time each day for academic work. Find a good place to work with your child where you can both be comfortable. If you are feeling overwhelmed, consider consulting with one of Oak Meadow’s experienced teachers, enrolling in our distance-learning program, using a tutor, or asking an experienced friend for help.

7. Be resourceful and independent. Reach out to others. Make friends with your local librarian; it’s a great way to find out what resources are available and connect with other homeschooling families or groups in the area. Explore online resources. Oak Meadow’s social media offerings are a good place to start. Our Pinterest boards offer many inspiring hands-on ideas, and Facebook is a great place to connect with other homeschooling parents and find validation for this journey. There are many online groups for homeschooling parents. Seek support from like-minded people wherever you find it.

8. Go outside! Oak Meadow’s organic approach to learning encourages families to learn out in the world. This means spending plenty of time outside in nature and interacting with others in your local neighborhood or community. Fresh air and the soothing sights and sounds of nature are a good antidote for stress of any kind, including the positive stress of the important transition from school to homeschool. Schools tend to be very social places, and you will want to be mindful of how your child’s needs for social interaction are met while homeschooling. You might find this benefits you as well as your child.

9. Be patient. It takes a few weeks or more to settle in. It will be a little while before you get your bearings and find a good rhythm for your homeschooling days and weeks. Don’t panic! It’s okay if things aren’t perfect. There is a lot to be learned from trial and error. Have fun with the process!

10. Trust yourself. Remember that you are the expert on your own child. The decision to begin homeschooling was made in response to something your child or family needed enough to warrant such a significant change. Why did you choose homeschooling? Remind yourself of these reasons often. Continue to nurture your connection with your child, especially during this vulnerable time when he or she is weathering such a big transition. And remember to take good care of yourself as you adapt to your role as home teacher.

Oak Meadow’s winter sale is on now! From today through 2/28, save 20% on everything in the bookstore and 10% on new enrollment!


This post is sponsored by Oak Meadow. Thanks for supporting the companies that support home/school/life. Amanda Witman is a lifelong learner and an enthusiastic homeschooling mother of four. She enjoys writing, playing fiddle, tending her garden, organizing community events, learning new things, having family adventures, and connecting with other homeschoolers. She manages social media at Oak Meadow.

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Get This Girl in a History Book: Great Biographies for Black History Month

If women get short shrift in history textbooks, black women get doubly short-changed—and that’s a shame, because cool women like these deserve wider recognition. Now’s the perfect time to get to know them better.

If women get short shrift in history textbooks, black women get doubly short-changed—and that’s a shame, because cool women like these deserve wider recognition. Now’s the perfect time to get to know them better.

 

ELLA BAKER

“My theory is, strong people don’t need strong leaders,” said civil rights activist Baker, who worked mostly behind the scenes from the 1930s to the 1980s to develop the NAACP, eliminate Jim Crow laws, organize the Freedom Summer, and found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).


MARY FIELDS

Six-foot-tall, cigar- smoking, shotgun-tot- ing Mary Fields (left) was born a slave and became the first black woman mail carrier in 1895 at age 60 by being the fastest applicant to hitch a team of six horses. She never missed a delivery—when snow was too deep for her horses, she strapped on snowshoes to deliver mail. “Stagecoach Mary” was so beloved that schools closed to celebrate her birthday and the mayor exempted her from Montana’s law against women entering saloons.


ELIZABETH KECKLEY

Keckley—who bought her freedom and started a successful dressmaking business—was Mary Todd Lincoln’s confidante and generated much controversy with her behind-the-scenes book about the Lincolns.


ORA WASHINGTON

Imagine if Serena Williams wrapped up her tennis career by becoming a pro basketball player: She might considered a modern-day Ora Washington. Despite the racism of the early 20th century sports world—the top white woman player refused to meet Washington in a match—Washington won the American Tennis Association’s singles title eight times in nine years and went on to head up a women’s basketball team that dominated the sport for more than a decade.


BIDDY MASON

Bridget Mason, called “Biddy,” moved to California with her Mississippi Mormon owners. Technically, in 1851 California, this made Biddy— and all Smiths’ slaves—free. Biddy took her owners to court to sue for her freedom, succeeding in freeing herself and all the other family slaves. Biddy went on to amass a fortune in Los Angeles real estate, which she used to fund charities, found schools, build churches, start parks, and more.


NINA MAE McKINNEY

It wasn’t easy being one of the first black actresses in a racist United States, but Nina Mae McKinney earned her reputation as “the black Garbo” with stellar performances in films like Hallelujah!


Her Story: A Timeline of the Women Who Changed America
By Charlotte S. Waisman, Jill S. Tietjen

VIOLETTE ANDERSON

Violette Anderson worked as a court reporter for 15 years before becoming the first woman to graduate from law school in Illinois. Her private practice was so successful that she was appointed assistant prosecutor for the city of Chicago. In 1926, she became the first black woman to practice law before the U.S. Supreme Court.


MARY BOWSER 

Not many enslaved people got sent to boarding school, but smart, resourceful Mary Bowser was lucky enough to be born on a Richmond plantation owned by a staunch abolitionist who not only appreciated Mary’s talents but wanted to help her develop them. When the Civil War started, Mary’s former owner risked her life to start a spy system to pass information to the union Army. Mary was one of her recruits.The fact that she was both black and a woman made it easy for Mary to fly under the radar when she was hired as a servant for President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis. Assuming Mary was ignorant and illiterate, Davis had confidential conversations in front of her and left official papers where she could see them. Though Davis suspected a leak, it wasn’t until late in the war that suspicion fell on Mary.


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52 Weeks of Happier Homeschooling Week 19: Set Back Your Clock

52 Weeks of Happier Homeschooling Week 19: Set Back Your Clock

Pretty much everyone could stand to get a little more sleep—and homeschoolers are fortunate enough to be in a position to actually get some. 

We all know the benefits of getting enough sleep (which for most people is at least seven hours each night)—you’re more alert, more optimistic, and have more energy to get you through the day. What you may not know is that getting a little more sleep can actually make your life more fun. A Harvard Medical School study found that people who were sleep-deprived were less likely to get jokes and find everyday events funny. Well-rested folks, on the other hand, found much more to laugh at in their daily lives. This doesn’t mean you’ll magically find Monday morning handwriting battles hilarious, but it does mean that a little extra sleep can make your homeschool a little more fun, funnier place.

People often recommend hitting the sack an hour earlier, and if that works for your family, an earlier bedtime can be a great way to get a little more sleep. But if you’ve got a crew of night owls or just a long nighttime routine, consider pushing back your morning start time an hour instead. 

Your challenge this week: Build an extra hour of sleep into your routine two nights this week.


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Little Unit Study: Abraham Lincoln

He led the United States through one of its bloodiest conflicts, ended slavery, and gave some of history’s most memorable speeches. Celebrate Lincoln’s birthday on February 12 with these resources 

Homeschool Unit Study: Abraham Lincoln

“The Presidency, even to the most experienced politicians, is no bed of roses,” wrote Abraham Lincoln in his 1850 eulogy for President Zachary Taylor. Lincoln was a decade away from his own presidency, and he must have felt the truth of his own words many times in the years that followed, as he sat in the White House, leader of a nation at war with itself. Schools tend to gloss up Lincoln’s story, focusing on his plain-speaking, rail- splitting, self-determined path to the nation’s highest office, but there’s much more to the sixteenth President than a simple story can tell. Don’t be afraid to dig deep — Honest Abe is worth the effort.

Best Movie

Lincoln
Starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, Hal Holbrook, James Spader, Joseph Gordon-Levitt
 

Abraham Lincoln has featured in twenty-something movies since his first appearance in Birth of a Nation (1915), but Spielberg’s Lincoln (2013) is arguably one of the best. Much of the script is pulled verbatim from letters and memoirs, and though there are some historical details to nitpick, Spielberg’s efforts to be scrupulous pay off. This is the Lincoln movie to see.

Runner-Up: Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)

 

Best Scholarly Book

President Barack Obama (himself a former Illinois lawyer) has said that Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln is the book he’d want to have with him on a desert island. Historian Goodwin is at her best exploring the conflicting personalities and factions that defined the Lincoln White House.

Runner-Up: Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson

 

Best Kid’s Book

Grace's Letter to Lincoln
By Peter Roop, Connie Roop
 

True story: When Abraham Lincoln was running for his first term as President, a little girl from New York wrote him a letter, suggesting that he consider growing a beard to make his thin face more attractive. Grace’s Letter to Lincoln, by Peter and Connie Roop, tells the lightly fictionalized story of eleven-year-old Grace Bedell’s famous letter. One of the more interesting things about this book is that it portrays a young girl’s obvious political interest during a time when women weren’t allowed to vote. 

Runner-Up: The Boys’ Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay

 

Best Virtual Field Trip

You can — and should — spend hours browsing the Abraham Lincoln collection online at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American history. Including Lincoln’s iconic top hat, the wool shawl he wore in the office, a copy of the original Emancipation Proclamation, and more artifacts and analysis, this virtual field trip may be the ultimate Lincoln experience.

 

Best Lincoln Biography

How does a man go from being “a piece of floating driftwood” to leading a country through a crisis? That’s the question historian Douglas L. Wilson attempts to answer in his biography Honor’s Voice, painting the many stumbling blocks and difficulties the young attorney ran into on his way to the White House.

Runner-Up: The Young Eagle by Kenneth J. Winkle

 

Best Collected Lincoln

Perhaps the best way to get to know anyone is through his own writing. The Portable Abraham Lincoln, edited by Andrew Delbanco, includes the speeches and letters that made Lincoln famous, as well as more personal, lesser-known writings. Compelling stuff.

 

Best Extra Credit

Lincoln's Grave Robbers
By Steve Sheinkin
 

Bet you didn’t know about the 1875 plot to rob Lincoln’s grave and hold his body for ransom — and that’s a shame because it’s a rip-roaring good story. Happily, Steve Sheinkin tells it brilliantly in his can’t-put-down book Lincoln’s Grave Robbers.


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Stuff We Like :: 2.10.17

home|school|life’s Friday roundup of the best homeschool links, reads, tools, and other fun stuff has lots of ideas and resources.

Look at that—we made it through another week. And Suzanne and I are finally getingt it together to get back on the podcast train.

around the web

Oooh, oooh, oooh! There’s a linguistics museum coming to Washington D.C.

Flannery O’Connor’s take on racism and refugees feels really relevant right now.

I’m not saying we should hide from the news all the time. I’m just saying that this Chrome extension will turn pictures of Donald Trump into pictures of kittens. (Alternatively: How to stay outraged without losing your mind)

 

at home/school/life

on the blog: Nelson Mandela reminds us that leaders can be intelligent, compassionate, and fair-minded.

one year ago: We were getting all excited about the Great Backyard Bird Count. (It’s Feb. 17-20 this year.)

two years ago: Homeschooling isn’t always easier in hindsight.

three years ago: Aw, look, it’s Suzanne’s very first post for the website.

 

reading list

I’m always looking for feminist fantasy because I suspect that the reason I don’t read more fantasy books is because the role of women in them is often problematic, at least to me. (I know this probably shouldn’t get under my skin so much, but it totally does.) So I was pleased to pick up Maresi, about a girl who lives in at an abbey of tough, smart women dedicated to the goddess. Maresi—a girl after my own heart, who’s always looking for an excuse to sneak into the library—befriends a new refugee whose outside life follows her to the abbey and puts all its inhabitants in danger. This is the kind of fantasy I can get behind—which is nice, since this is apparently the first in a series.

Because apparently the real world has not shaken my faith in humanity enough (what is wrong with me?), I’ve also recently finished The Witches, a book about the history of the infamous Salem witch trials. I typically enjoy Stacy Schiff’s books—if you haven’t read her Ben Franklin book, you should put it on your library list—and this one was smart, thorough, and really well researched. I just think I wasn’t in the right headspace to appreciate it.

It’s getting harder and harder to find books that my 9-year-old and my 14-year-old are both interested in listening to as readalouds, so I’m thankful this week for The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, which has had both of them giggling and snuggling on the couch with me this week.

 

at home

I can’t wait for the new season of Masterchef Junior! I even have a new knitting project all picked out for it.

This chicken recipe from the recent Bon Appetit was a hit with everyone. I was skeptical about the oranges, but they really made it sing. I did serve the olives on the side though because olives are controversial in our dining room.


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Book Review: The Birchbark House

THE BIRCHBARK HOUSE
by Louise Erdich

I discovered Louise Erdrich in college and quickly became a huge fan, collecting most of her books and following her career, which is studded with awards and honors. I think her prose is beautiful and her subject matter and characters fascinating, but what I have always liked best about her is her humor. When I found out that she had written a series for young adults, I knew I had to read it to my boys. And I’ve just finished the first book: The Birchbark House

Both my boys loved this book. However, they didn’t think they would like it. My 10-year-old son took one look at the cover and groaned. I let my 7-year-old play instead of sitting on the sofa to listen, but he was in earshot. About halfway through the book, he began to sit still and listen with his brother and me. I knew they were both listening when they burst out laughing at a very funny part near the end of the book.

They were captured by the main character’s spirit. She’s a young girl, named Omakayas, or Little Frog, because her first step was a hop. She has a special way with animals, befriending two bear cubs, and she even has a crow for a pet. We learn how her family, members of the Anishinabe (now called Objibwe or Chippewa), build their homes and feed themselves. We spend a full year with them, including the very tragic winter of 1847, but the beauty and messages in this book are uplifting. We are carried along as Omakayas learns important life lessons and discovers whom she really is.

This book had everything in it that I hoped for and felt was important for my two boys to hear. First, it helped them see how the Native American tribes were affected by the arrival of white settlers. (I trust we will continue to learn about this as we continue the series.) Second, it has strong female characters. Third, it allowed them to hear beautifully written prose—something that I haven’t found in every young adult fiction book. This book also deals with loss and grief and healing in a beautiful, sensitive way. 

This book would make a perfect readaloud in your homeschool because it’s a story that every age can enjoy, but even if you don’t have young children to read it to, you should read it. It’s that good.


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Amy Sharony Amy Sharony

How to Beat Midwinter Cabin Fever in Your Homeschool

We can’t make spring get here any faster, but we can suggest a few ways to stymie cooped-up boredom and get a little break from the cabin fever blues.  

Feeling cooped up can muck up your sleep schedule, set your nerves on edge, and even make you sick — and in the middle of another shiver-me-timbers winter, cabin fever can be the straw that breaks the parent’s back. We can’t make spring get here any faster, but we can suggest a few ways to stymie cooped-up boredom and get a little break from the cabin fever blues.  

Go camping in the living room. Set up a tent (or rig one out of pillows and blankets), roll out the sleeping bags, and eat s’mores while you tell stories by flashlight.

Go on a treasure hunt. Put together a series of maps or clues (bonus points if they rhyme) to guide kids to a treasure hidden in your house. Use your kids’ ability level to decide on your clues: They should be tricky enough to need solving but not so tough that kids lose interest. Your hidden booty might be a new game, a craft project, movie tickets, or another boredom buster.

Paint a mural. Kids who like drawing or painting will love the opportunity to work on a big-scale project. Cover a wall with a giant canvas or roll of paper — or paint right on the wall, if you’re feeling particularly brave. Get kids started mocking up their mural on standard-size paper, then transfer the perfect mural to the wall using the grid method.

Set up an obstacle course. You can keep it simple — do 10 jumping jacks here, run around in circles there — or get more complicated with Lego building stations, Ninja-sliding walls, and pillow-jumping paths.

Start a marshmallow war. Build marshmallow shooters and compete to see who can shoot marshmallows the farthest and most accurately. You can get cull instructions on the Come Together Kids blog, but all you’ll need are plastic cups, balloons, mini marshmallows, and a pair of scissors.

Make a time capsule. Pick a future date, and let the kids write a letter and put together a package for their future selves. Store this in a safe place, and you and your kids will be delighted to rediscover it down the road.

Learn a secret code. Pick up a copy of a book like The Book of Codes: Understanding the World of Hidden Messages: An Illustrated Guide to Signs, Symbols, Ciphers, and Secret Languages and read up on the history of codes from prehistoric cave drawings to modern day graffiti. 

Host your own film festival. Pop plenty of popcorn and settle in for a movie marathon. We think a mix of classic musicals (Singin’ in the Rain, Annie), engaging documentaries (Miss Representation, Walking with Dinosaurs), and family favorites (Toy Story, Labyrinth) is just about perfect.

Publish a family newspaper. Kids can review movies, music, and television shows, report on important family news, interview each other for profiles, and opine on current events in editorials. If you’re handy with a video camera, you can turn your paper into a news show.

Find a pen pal. A pen pal can be an excellent opportunity to hone writing skills and give your kids something to do on quiet afternoons. Find a pen pal through your homeschool group or an organization like Homeschool Pen Pals, and stock up on stationery.

Break out the family pictures. Face it: Your 90s prom hairstyle is never going to stop being hilarious to your kids, so suck up the embarrassment and pull out your childhood photos. Consider creating a scrapbook — The Johnson Family’s Most Embarrassing Memories, for instance — or a photo album of great family photos with captions. 

Create a concert light show. With Snap Circuits Lights, you can create individualized light shows for your favorite (and least favorite) songs. Kids can build their own light board, then program it to interact with songs from an mp3 player.

Throw a mad tea party. Dress up in your fanciest party clothes and your favorite hat for a Wonderland tea party. Of course you’ll want to serve tea and crumpets.

Make a puppet theater. Home Depot has a handy plan for building a permanent puppet theater, or you can just repurpose a cardboard for your family puppet shows. Make sock puppets from partnerless socks, yarn, fabric glue, and other odds and ends, and put on puppet shows based on classic fairy tales, nursery rhymes, or your own stories.

Start a chain story. Begin a story with a few paragraphs, and take turns adding “what happens next.” You’ll be amazed at your kids’ imaginations — and all the wacky twists your story can take.

Hold a music education class. Mosey on over to YouTube, and let each family member put together a list of must-listen music to share with the rest of the clan. It’s fun to talk about what makes a song your favorite versus the best and how much that answer can vary from person to person.

Have a costume parade. It’s really a shame that Halloween only comes once a year when making your own costumes is so fun. Set a day for your family costume party that gives kids enough time to work on their costumes — you can set a theme, such as Literary Characters or Animals, or let imaginations roam free — and hook everyone up with supplies and costume-crafting assistance. This can be especially fun if you invite friends to join the dress-up party.

Plan a road trip. Collect a pile of travel guides from the library and plan your ultimate family vacation. 

Put together a science fair. This one may take a little effort on your part, but as Shelli discovered, it’s well worth it. Kids can choose a topic, conduct research and experiments, and present their findings — and if you can find a host location and get other homeschoolers on board, too, so much the better.

Make a laser course. Use yarn or string and masking tape to create a web of “lasers” for kids to make their way through, super spy-style. This works best in a hallway or narrower room — just don’t block the way to the bathroom.

Play cards. Pagat.com can remind you of the rules to pretty much any card game you can think of, from the basics like rummy and spades to games you’ve never heard of, like Skitgubbe or Svoi Kozyri.

Make a bird feeder. Plenty of birds stick around through the winter, and a bird feeder is a practical way to assist your local wildlife in addition to being a fun boredom buster. Position your feeder near a window with a bird identification guide handy, and you can start a list of local birds. 

This list is excerpted from the winter 2015 issue of home/school/life. Are you a subscriber?


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Topics in History: Nelson Mandela

“To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others,” Mandela famously said. Learn more about the life of South Africa’s celebrated leader with this little unit study.

Nelson Mandela unit study for homeschool

It’s been more than two decades since Nelson Mandela was inaugurated president of South Africa, marking the end of that country’s racially charged apartheid program. Even after witnessing some of the atrocities against black Africans and spending 27 years imprisoned for treason by the South African government, Mandela never wavered from his stance of peaceful resistance and worked to heal the wounds of apartheid on both sides. “To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others,” Mandela famously said, a belief that informed his political life in South Africa and beyond.

10 ways to get to know Nelson Mandela

  1. Let him introduce himself. Chris van Wyk adapted Mandela’s powerful autobiography Long Walk to Freedom to be more accessible to younger readers, but don’t worry—his simplified version packs plenty of punch.

  2. Get the comic book version. ArtisanCam uses a combination of comic books, audio files, and video to tell the story of Mandela’s life.

  3. Find your rhythm. NPR put together an awesome playlist of the songs Mandela would have grown up listening to in South Africa mixed with the songs artists around the world performed to support him.

  4. Read his words. The New York Times’ Voice of Mandela includes a great archive of some of Mandela’s best-known speeches.

  5. Watch him evolve. Mandela’s first on-camera interview—conducted before his imprisonment—is especially interesting because he’s clearly conflicted about whether the peaceful methods he believes in will be enough to effect real change in South Africa.

  6. Celebrate his achievements. Maya Angelou’s powerful tribute poem compares Mandela to the Biblical David, battling the Goliath of apartheid with little more than a slingshot and winning with “his stupendous heart intact / His gargantuan will / Hale and hearty.”

  7. Watch his Hollywood moments. Morgan Freeman plays the new South African president in Invictus, a film about Mandela’s attempts to reunite his country through a rugby World Cup victory. Mandela: The Long Walk to Freedom covers the story of Mandela’s life from village schoolboy to renowned leader, with Idris Elba in the title role.

  8. Understand his context. It’s easy to appreciate Mandela’s work, but to really understand its significance, you need to understand South African politics and history. No book better captures that—from the days of the dinosaurs to the formation of the gold reefs to modern day politics—than the excellent Dinosaurs, Diamonds, and Democracy.

  9. Be in the moment. Mandela’s release from prison essentially changed everything about life in South Africa. The details in this well-reported article bring that day to vivid life.

  10. Take a walk on the dark side. Young and very sensitive kids should not watch Facing the Truth with Bill Moyers, an intense and heart-wrenching look at the real-life violence of apartheid. But older students who can handle it will get a clear look at the dark side of segregation and racism.


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52 Weeks of Happier Homeschooling Week 18: Talk to a New Homeschool Mom

52 Weeks of Happier Homeschooling Week 18: Talk to a New Homeschool Mom

We often think the best mentors are the people who’ve logged years of practical experiences—and those park day moms who’ve successfully sent their kids off to college are definitely founts of knowledge. But when it comes to getting fired up about homeschooling again, you might find more inspiration from the folks who haven’t been there and done that.

Researchers studying mathematical mentors have found that people in the first third of their careers—relative newbies—are the most successful mentors. (The study looked at how many of an adviser’s mentored students went on to train their own mentees. The younger the original mentors, the more mentees their protégés would go on to have.) This may be partly because the newer you are to a particular project, the more willing you are to try out new ideas—because you’re still figuring out how things work, you’re more open to possibilities of failure and collaboration than you are once you’ve found a steady rhythm. There are benefits to chatting with homeschoolers on both sides of the experience curve, but when you’re looking for an enthusiasm charge, seek out new moms who are still in their first or second year of homeschooling. Their enthusiasm can be catching, their new ideas may inspire you, and when you weigh in with your own experiences, you may find yourself rediscovering some of the reasons you love homeschooling.

Your challenge this week: Make a connection with a newer homeschooler. It doesn’t have to require any hoop-jumping: Respond to a question on your homeschool group’s email chain, or introduce yourself to that mom with the kindergartener at park day. 


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Not-So-New Books: Grave Mercy

In an alternate medieval Brittany, Ismae finally finds a home where she belongs — in a convent of Mortain, the god of death, where she studies the delicate art of assassination. But her first assignment calls on all her will and wiles as she's forced to team up with Gavriel Duval, half-brother to the Duchess of Brittany and potential enemy, to take down a plot to overthrow the young Duchess.

If you've ever read a book, it won't be a spoiler to learn that Ismae finds herself increasingly drawn to Duval, even as she suspects him of complicity in the plot against his half-sister. Ismae's convent upbringing has prepared her well for the intrigues and treachery of court but not for her feelings for Duval or for her growing sense that the convent's orders may not be as unequivocally right as she's always believed. As the political tension at court comes to a head, Ismae must choose between her training and her heart.

Honestly, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Grave Mercy. The plot is nothing special, and Ismae is very much a character in the Katniss vein — she remains stubbornly oblivious to her own emotions and manages to navigate every perilous situation she finds herself in (and there are plenty) through a combination of good luck and natural skill. But the idea of a convent where young women who have no place in medieval society learn to help Death in his duties is engaging, and LaFevers gives it enough detail and nuance to make it believable. Some characters, such as the villainous Count d'Albret and the kind-hearted but determined Duchess Anne, border on caricatures, but they play their part in the story well enough. And Ismae's evolving understanding of what it really means to be "a daughter of death" is pretty fascinating. This one's a good addition to your young adult library.


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