HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for September 25, 2018
We rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 9/25/18.
Today's Best Book Deals for Your Homeschool
(Prices are correct as of the time of writing, but y'all know sales move fast — check before you click the buy button! These are Amazon links — read more about how we use affiliate links to help support some of the costs of the HSL blog here.)
The Everything Kids' Science Experiments Book: Boil Ice, Float Water, Measure Gravity-Challenge the World Around You! is just $0.99. This is a handy book to break out when you need a quick, fun hands-on science experiment that doesn’t require a ton of prep or equipment. (And with the Kindle version, you can search for key terms — like diffusion or photosynthesis — which is so handy!)
The Search for WondLa is $3.99. School Library Journal says “DiTerlizzi is pushing the envelope in his latest work, nearly creating a new format that combines a traditional novel with a graphic novel and with the interactivity of the computer. Yet, beneath this impressive package lies a theme readers will easily relate to: the need to belong, to connect, to figure out one's place in the world. The novel's ending is a stunning shocker that will leave kids frantically awaiting the next installment.”
The Boggart is $3.99. If you’re looking for something that will remind you of Roald Dahl, this hilarious story of an ancient, magical Boggart meeting modern technology is a readaloud delight.
Still on sale
Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes is $2.99. Auxier’s weird Gothic-fantasy mash-ups aren’t for everyone, but they’re definitely for me, and this story about a blind orphan who steals a box of magical eyes and ends up on a fantastic quest is delightful.
The Name of the Wind is $1.99. If your fantasy-loving teen needs a new series to binge, you can’t go wrong with Lin-Manuel Miranda’s recommendation!
Absalom, Absalom! is $1.99. Faulkner’s story of the dark legacy of slavery and the question of what it means to be human convinced Suzanne that Faulkner was worth a read. I am totally biased by my own Faulkner love, but this is one of his best, I think. For high school.
The Book Thief is $2.99. When Death has a story to tell, you listen. In 1939 Germany, an orphan falls in love with book — and Death himself narrates the stories. Holocaust stories can be both punishing and profound, and this one is no exception — but when you’re ready, it’s worth reading.
Howl’s Moving Castle is $3.99. Sometimes a curse can be just what you needed, as Sophie discovers in this delightful fantasy about a hat maker's daughter who's cursed to premature old age by the Witch of the Waste. To break the curse, Sophie will need to team up with the mysterious wizard Howl, who happens to be stuck under a curse of his own — but first, she'll have to get to his castle, which has a habit of wandering around. I love this as a readaloud, on its own, or (of course) a companion piece to the equally wonderful (though often quite different) movie adaptation.
Jackaby is $1.99. This first in the series (of which I am a fan) introduces the supernatural Sherlock Holmes and his new assistant, runaway young lady (who’d rather be a paleontologist) Abigail Rook.
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches is $1.99. More for teens and parents than younger readers, Audre Lorde tackles racism, sexism, homophobia, and other-ing in all its forms. The New York Times says: “Lorde's works will be important to those truly interested in growing up sensitive, intelligent, and aware.”
The Glass Town Game is just $0.99. I snagged this one as soon as I saw it since it made Suzanne’s Best of 2017 list — she says “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 Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World by E.L. Konigsburg is $0.99. This isn’t my favorite Konigsburg — but if this were any other author, this story about a new kid in town who dreams of discovering something new would be high on the list. Konigsburg just sets a really high bar for herself.
The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman's brilliant (and Pulitzer Prize-winning) history of the month leading up to World War I, is $1.99. Tuchman has a knack for weaving sophisticated historical details into a text that reads like a story, and I feel like a high school U.S. history student who skipped this book would be missing out. (At least read the first chapter, about Edward VII's funeral, together!)
Salt: A World History is $1.99. I love books like this that trace some apparently insignificant item through history; Library Journal says: "Deftly leading readers around the world and across cultures and centuries, he takes an inexpensive, mundane item and shows how it has influenced and affected wars, cultures, governments, religions, societies, economies, cooking (there are a few recipes), and foods." Sign me up.
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is $2.99. From Booklist: "Tommy and his friends think that Dwight is a weirdo who’s 'always talking about robots or spiders or something.' In true Dwight fashion, he shows up at school one day brandishing a little origami Yoda finger puppet. The really weird thing is that it doles out very un-Dwight-like bits of wisdom, and the mystery is whether the Yoda is just Dwight talking in a funny voice or if it actually has mystical powers." Hand this to your 4th to 6th grader who loves the Wimpy Kid series.
The Girl from Everywhere is $1.99. From our review: "I mean, really, how can you resist a story that centers on a time-traveling pirate ship that can go anywhere someone’s taken the time to draw a map of?"
The Wednesday Wars is $1.99. This is a quirky charmer of a story about how Shakespeare can change your life, set in Vietnam-era New Jersey.
American Street is $1.99. This was one of our favorite books of 2017.
The Iron Trial is $1.99. From the fall 2014 issue: "Callum’s father has always taught him to avoid magic — so Callum is determined to do whatever it takes to get kicked out of the magical school he’s forced to attend."
Writing Magic: Creating Stories That Fly is $1.99. We recommend this in our great books for young writers list.
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for September 24, 2018
We rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 9/24/18.
Today's Best Book Deals for Your Homeschool
(Prices are correct as of the time of writing, but y'all know sales move fast — check before you click the buy button! These are Amazon links — read more about how we use affiliate links to help support some of the costs of the HSL blog here.)
Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes is $2.99. Auxier’s weird Gothic-fantasy mash-ups aren’t for everyone, but they’re definitely for me, and this story about a blind orphan who steals a box of magical eyes and ends up on a fantastic quest is delightful.
The Name of the Wind is $1.99. If your fantasy-loving teen needs a new series to binge, you can’t go wrong with Lin-Manuel Miranda’s recommendation!
Absalom, Absalom! is $1.99. Faulkner’s story of the dark legacy of slavery and the question of what it means to be human convinced Suzanne that Faulkner was worth a read. I am totally biased by my own Faulkner love, but this is one of his best, I think. For high school.
Still on sale
The Book Thief is $2.99. When Death has a story to tell, you listen. In 1939 Germany, an orphan falls in love with book — and Death himself narrates the stories. Holocaust stories can be both punishing and profound, and this one is no exception — but when you’re ready, it’s worth reading.
Howl’s Moving Castle is $3.99. Sometimes a curse can be just what you needed, as Sophie discovers in this delightful fantasy about a hat maker's daughter who's cursed to premature old age by the Witch of the Waste. To break the curse, Sophie will need to team up with the mysterious wizard Howl, who happens to be stuck under a curse of his own — but first, she'll have to get to his castle, which has a habit of wandering around. I love this as a readaloud, on its own, or (of course) a companion piece to the equally wonderful (though often quite different) movie adaptation.
Jackaby is $1.99. This first in the series (of which I am a fan) introduces the supernatural Sherlock Holmes and his new assistant, runaway young lady (who’d rather be a paleontologist) Abigail Rook.
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches is $1.99. More for teens and parents than younger readers, Audre Lorde tackles racism, sexism, homophobia, and other-ing in all its forms. The New York Times says: “Lorde's works will be important to those truly interested in growing up sensitive, intelligent, and aware.”
The Glass Town Game is just $0.99. I snagged this one as soon as I saw it since it made Suzanne’s Best of 2017 list — she says “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 Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World by E.L. Konigsburg is $0.99. This isn’t my favorite Konigsburg — but if this were any other author, this story about a new kid in town who dreams of discovering something new would be high on the list. Konigsburg just sets a really high bar for herself.
The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman's brilliant (and Pulitzer Prize-winning) history of the month leading up to World War I, is $1.99. Tuchman has a knack for weaving sophisticated historical details into a text that reads like a story, and I feel like a high school U.S. history student who skipped this book would be missing out. (At least read the first chapter, about Edward VII's funeral, together!)
Salt: A World History is $1.99. I love books like this that trace some apparently insignificant item through history; Library Journal says: "Deftly leading readers around the world and across cultures and centuries, he takes an inexpensive, mundane item and shows how it has influenced and affected wars, cultures, governments, religions, societies, economies, cooking (there are a few recipes), and foods." Sign me up.
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is $2.99. From Booklist: "Tommy and his friends think that Dwight is a weirdo who’s 'always talking about robots or spiders or something.' In true Dwight fashion, he shows up at school one day brandishing a little origami Yoda finger puppet. The really weird thing is that it doles out very un-Dwight-like bits of wisdom, and the mystery is whether the Yoda is just Dwight talking in a funny voice or if it actually has mystical powers." Hand this to your 4th to 6th grader who loves the Wimpy Kid series.
The Girl from Everywhere is $1.99. From our review: "I mean, really, how can you resist a story that centers on a time-traveling pirate ship that can go anywhere someone’s taken the time to draw a map of?"
The Wednesday Wars is $1.99. This is a quirky charmer of a story about how Shakespeare can change your life, set in Vietnam-era New Jersey.
American Street is $1.99. This was one of our favorite books of 2017.
The Iron Trial is $1.99. From the fall 2014 issue: "Callum’s father has always taught him to avoid magic — so Callum is determined to do whatever it takes to get kicked out of the magical school he’s forced to attend."
Writing Magic: Creating Stories That Fly is $1.99. We recommend this in our great books for young writers list.
Bespoke Book List: Books about Bugs
We love bugs! What should we be reading?
You asked: “We really love bugs in our homeschool! What should we be reading?”
If you want a book full of cool photographs of insects in action—not pinned specimens—check out Insects: Their Natural History and Diversity: With a Photographic Guide to Insects of Eastern North America by Stephen A. Marshall. This is one of the best insect identification guides out there, and its I.D. keys are sophisticated enough to make it a favorite of working naturalists but simple enough to make sense to an interested amateur. And if you just want a book to flip through and look at awesome bug photos, this is a good bet for that, too.
Amy Stewart’s Wicked Bugs: The Louse That Conquered Napoleon's Army and Other Diabolical Insects is one of those non-fiction books that will have you glued to your seats: From giant centipedes that capture and eat bats in mid-air (yikes) to millipedes that actually stopped Tokyo traffic (double-yikes), there’s no shortage of creepy crawly facts in this thoroughly researched and thoroughly saucy story of bug lore. (There’s even a written-for-middle-schoolers version for younger entomologists that you may want to check out, also titled Wicked Bugs.)
For younger readers, Diary of a Fly is a funny, whimsically illustrated, and fact-filled text-heavy picture book about a fly who wants to be a superhero—after all, she can fly and walk on walls, right?—and maybe get a break from her 327 brothers and sisters. There are lots of gross and funny details that will make younger kids giggle.
For Love of Insects by Thomas Eisner always seems to show up on entomologists’ recommended reading lists, and it’s easy to see why. The book paints the lives of tiny insects on an epic scale: Beetles who spray their enemies with boiling hot ejections, caterpillars who disguise themselves by dressing up in flower petals, moths who hold their mates for ransom. Eisner loves the complex, fascinating world of insects, and he makes you love it, too.
The photos are what make Bees: An Up-Close Look at Pollinators Around the World by Sam Droege and Laurence Packer so amazing—they were taken as part of the U.S. Geological Survey Native Bee Inventory and Monitoring Program and feature incredibly detailed pictures of bees. My kids were fascinated by the lengths the photographers went to get those great photos, including using teeny tiny pins to gently remove dust from the bees’ bodies.
In What Good Are Bugs?: Insects in the Web of Life, Gilbert Waldbauer combines stories from entomological history with his own research to describe the role of insects in ecosystems. Reading about ants growing “hanging gardens” in the Amazon rain forest or imagining a world without the useful, sanitary services of maggots and beetles really gives you a new appreciation for the amazing contributions that insects make to everyday human life.
Another of Waldbauer’s books, Fireflies, Honey, and Silk embraces a multidisciplinary approach, taking you inside the significance of insects in science, history, poetry, mythology, literature, medicine, ecology, and forensics. Waldbauer’s an entomologist, and his book illuminates the ways insects have made our lives richer places—economically, culturally, and aesthetically.
Jay Hosler is a biologist who studies bugs, but in our house, he’s best known as the author of The Last of the Sandwalkers, a graphic novel about a community of beetles who discover they are not alone in the world. Though it’s not technically a children’s book and does tackle some complex issues, notably the perpetual tension between traditional authority and the thirst for discovery, bug lovers will appreciate the delightful illustrations and really charming story.
This was originally published in the fall 2017 issue of HSL.
(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.)
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for September 23, 2018
We rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 9/23/18.
Today's Best Book Deals for Your Homeschool
(Prices are correct as of the time of writing, but y'all know sales move fast — check before you click the buy button! These are Amazon links — read more about how we use affiliate links to help support some of the costs of the HSL blog here.)
The Book Thief is $2.99. When Death has a story to tell, you listen. In 1939 Germany, an orphan falls in love with book — and Death himself narrates the stories. Holocaust stories can be both punishing and profound, and this one is no exception — but when you’re ready, it’s worth reading.
The Beekeeper’s Apprentice (first in the Sherlock Holmes/Mary Russell mystery series) is $3.99. Traditionalist Holmes fans might not appreciate its take one a retired Holmes, who pauses his beekeeping project to team up with a plucky, egotistical orphan (a girl, no less!) in decidedly post-Victorian 1915, but if you like the BBC series or you raged at Holmes’s decision in “The Speckled Band” (She hired you, Holmes!), you’ll appreciate this older, wiser take on the detective.
Still on sale
Howl’s Moving Castle is $3.99. Sometimes a curse can be just what you needed, as Sophie discovers in this delightful fantasy about a hat maker's daughter who's cursed to premature old age by the Witch of the Waste. To break the curse, Sophie will need to team up with the mysterious wizard Howl, who happens to be stuck under a curse of his own — but first, she'll have to get to his castle, which has a habit of wandering around. I love this as a readaloud, on its own, or (of course) a companion piece to the equally wonderful (though often quite different) movie adaptation.
Jackaby is $1.99. This first in the series (of which I am a fan) introduces the supernatural Sherlock Holmes and his new assistant, runaway young lady (who’d rather be a paleontologist) Abigail Rook.
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches is $1.99. More for teens and parents than younger readers, Audre Lorde tackles racism, sexism, homophobia, and other-ing in all its forms. The New York Times says: “Lorde's works will be important to those truly interested in growing up sensitive, intelligent, and aware.”
The Glass Town Game is just $0.99. I snagged this one as soon as I saw it since it made Suzanne’s Best of 2017 list — she says “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 Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World by E.L. Konigsburg is $0.99. This isn’t my favorite Konigsburg — but if this were any other author, this story about a new kid in town who dreams of discovering something new would be high on the list. Konigsburg just sets a really high bar for herself.
The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman's brilliant (and Pulitzer Prize-winning) history of the month leading up to World War I, is $1.99. Tuchman has a knack for weaving sophisticated historical details into a text that reads like a story, and I feel like a high school U.S. history student who skipped this book would be missing out. (At least read the first chapter, about Edward VII's funeral, together!)
Salt: A World History is $1.99. I love books like this that trace some apparently insignificant item through history; Library Journal says: "Deftly leading readers around the world and across cultures and centuries, he takes an inexpensive, mundane item and shows how it has influenced and affected wars, cultures, governments, religions, societies, economies, cooking (there are a few recipes), and foods." Sign me up.
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is $2.99. From Booklist: "Tommy and his friends think that Dwight is a weirdo who’s 'always talking about robots or spiders or something.' In true Dwight fashion, he shows up at school one day brandishing a little origami Yoda finger puppet. The really weird thing is that it doles out very un-Dwight-like bits of wisdom, and the mystery is whether the Yoda is just Dwight talking in a funny voice or if it actually has mystical powers." Hand this to your 4th to 6th grader who loves the Wimpy Kid series.
The Girl from Everywhere is $1.99. From our review: "I mean, really, how can you resist a story that centers on a time-traveling pirate ship that can go anywhere someone’s taken the time to draw a map of?"
The Wednesday Wars is $1.99. This is a quirky charmer of a story about how Shakespeare can change your life, set in Vietnam-era New Jersey.
American Street is $1.99. This was one of our favorite books of 2017.
The Iron Trial is $1.99. From the fall 2014 issue: "Callum’s father has always taught him to avoid magic — so Callum is determined to do whatever it takes to get kicked out of the magical school he’s forced to attend."
Writing Magic: Creating Stories That Fly is $1.99. We recommend this in our great books for young writers list.
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for September 22, 2018
We rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 9/22/18.
Today's Best Book Deals for Your Homeschool
(Prices are correct as of the time of writing, but y'all know sales move fast — check before you click the buy button! These are Amazon links — read more about how we use affiliate links to help support some of the costs of the HSL blog here.)
There’s a huge selection of cookbooks on sale for the Kindle right now! I don’t always love cookbooks on the Kindle because you feel guilty when you get tomato sauce on them, but this is a great way to brighten up your meal repertoire on the cheap. I’ve highlighted some of my favorites below, but you can find the full list here.
Still on sale
The Brontes: Wild Genius on the Moors: The Story of a Literary Family is $2.99 — and worth a read, even though the way the publishers keep adding subtitles to it might suggest otherwise! It's no secret that we at HSL totally buy into Brontes mania, but the three sisters of literary legend make a great high school lit study, especially if you add this academic biography to your reading list. Even if you think you know all about Charlotte, Emily, and Anne (and Branwell—don't forget Branwell!), you'll discover new details in this deeply researched study. One of the best ways to learn how to write intelligently about literature is to read intelligent writing about literature—this book definitely fits the bill.
Howl’s Moving Castle is $3.99. Sometimes a curse can be just what you needed, as Sophie discovers in this delightful fantasy about a hat maker's daughter who's cursed to premature old age by the Witch of the Waste. To break the curse, Sophie will need to team up with the mysterious wizard Howl, who happens to be stuck under a curse of his own — but first, she'll have to get to his castle, which has a habit of wandering around. I love this as a readaloud, on its own, or (of course) a companion piece to the equally wonderful (though often quite different) movie adaptation.
Jackaby is $1.99. This first in the series (of which I am a fan) introduces the supernatural Sherlock Holmes and his new assistant, runaway young lady (who’d rather be a paleontologist) Abigail Rook.
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches is $1.99. More for teens and parents than younger readers, Audre Lorde tackles racism, sexism, homophobia, and other-ing in all its forms. The New York Times says: “Lorde's works will be important to those truly interested in growing up sensitive, intelligent, and aware.”
The Glass Town Game is just $0.99. I snagged this one as soon as I saw it since it made Suzanne’s Best of 2017 list — she says “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 Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World by E.L. Konigsburg is $0.99. This isn’t my favorite Konigsburg — but if this were any other author, this story about a new kid in town who dreams of discovering something new would be high on the list. Konigsburg just sets a really high bar for herself.
The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman's brilliant (and Pulitzer Prize-winning) history of the month leading up to World War I, is $1.99. Tuchman has a knack for weaving sophisticated historical details into a text that reads like a story, and I feel like a high school U.S. history student who skipped this book would be missing out. (At least read the first chapter, about Edward VII's funeral, together!)
Salt: A World History is $1.99. I love books like this that trace some apparently insignificant item through history; Library Journal says: "Deftly leading readers around the world and across cultures and centuries, he takes an inexpensive, mundane item and shows how it has influenced and affected wars, cultures, governments, religions, societies, economies, cooking (there are a few recipes), and foods." Sign me up.
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is $2.99. From Booklist: "Tommy and his friends think that Dwight is a weirdo who’s 'always talking about robots or spiders or something.' In true Dwight fashion, he shows up at school one day brandishing a little origami Yoda finger puppet. The really weird thing is that it doles out very un-Dwight-like bits of wisdom, and the mystery is whether the Yoda is just Dwight talking in a funny voice or if it actually has mystical powers." Hand this to your 4th to 6th grader who loves the Wimpy Kid series.
The Girl from Everywhere is $1.99. From our review: "I mean, really, how can you resist a story that centers on a time-traveling pirate ship that can go anywhere someone’s taken the time to draw a map of?"
The Wednesday Wars is $1.99. This is a quirky charmer of a story about how Shakespeare can change your life, set in Vietnam-era New Jersey.
American Street is $1.99. This was one of our favorite books of 2017.
The Iron Trial is $1.99. From the fall 2014 issue: "Callum’s father has always taught him to avoid magic — so Callum is determined to do whatever it takes to get kicked out of the magical school he’s forced to attend."
Writing Magic: Creating Stories That Fly is $1.99. We recommend this in our great books for young writers list.
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for September 21, 2018
We rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 9/21/18.
Today's Best Book Deals for Your Homeschool
(Prices are correct as of the time of writing, but y'all know sales move fast — check before you click the buy button! These are Amazon links — read more about how we use affiliate links to help support some of the costs of the HSL blog here.)
The Brontes: Wild Genius on the Moors: The Story of a Literary Family is $2.99 — and worth a read, even though the way the publishers keep adding subtitles to it might suggest otherwise! It's no secret that we at HSL totally buy into Brontes mania, but the three sisters of literary legend make a great high school lit study, especially if you add this academic biography to your reading list. Even if you think you know all about Charlotte, Emily, and Anne (and Branwell—don't forget Branwell!), you'll discover new details in this deeply researched study. One of the best ways to learn how to write intelligently about literature is to read intelligent writing about literature—this book definitely fits the bill.
Still on sale
Howl’s Moving Castle is $3.99. Sometimes a curse can be just what you needed, as Sophie discovers in this delightful fantasy about a hat maker's daughter who's cursed to premature old age by the Witch of the Waste. To break the curse, Sophie will need to team up with the mysterious wizard Howl, who happens to be stuck under a curse of his own — but first, she'll have to get to his castle, which has a habit of wandering around. I love this as a readaloud, on its own, or (of course) a companion piece to the equally wonderful (though often quite different) movie adaptation.
Jackaby is $1.99. This first in the series (of which I am a fan) introduces the supernatural Sherlock Holmes and his new assistant, runaway young lady (who’d rather be a paleontologist) Abigail Rook.
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches is $1.99. More for teens and parents than younger readers, Audre Lorde tackles racism, sexism, homophobia, and other-ing in all its forms. The New York Times says: “Lorde's works will be important to those truly interested in growing up sensitive, intelligent, and aware.”
The Children of Henry VIII is $2.99 — and if you’re obsessed with all things Tudor, as I am, you’ll find this history of Henry’s heirs fascinating reading.
The Glass Town Game is just $0.99. I snagged this one as soon as I saw it since it made Suzanne’s Best of 2017 list — she says “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 Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World by E.L. Konigsburg is $0.99. This isn’t my favorite Konigsburg — but if this were any other author, this story about a new kid in town who dreams of discovering something new would be high on the list. Konigsburg just sets a really high bar for herself.
The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman's brilliant (and Pulitzer Prize-winning) history of the month leading up to World War I, is $1.99. Tuchman has a knack for weaving sophisticated historical details into a text that reads like a story, and I feel like a high school U.S. history student who skipped this book would be missing out. (At least read the first chapter, about Edward VII's funeral, together!)
Salt: A World History is $1.99. I love books like this that trace some apparently insignificant item through history; Library Journal says: "Deftly leading readers around the world and across cultures and centuries, he takes an inexpensive, mundane item and shows how it has influenced and affected wars, cultures, governments, religions, societies, economies, cooking (there are a few recipes), and foods." Sign me up.
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is $2.99. From Booklist: "Tommy and his friends think that Dwight is a weirdo who’s 'always talking about robots or spiders or something.' In true Dwight fashion, he shows up at school one day brandishing a little origami Yoda finger puppet. The really weird thing is that it doles out very un-Dwight-like bits of wisdom, and the mystery is whether the Yoda is just Dwight talking in a funny voice or if it actually has mystical powers." Hand this to your 4th to 6th grader who loves the Wimpy Kid series.
The Girl from Everywhere is $1.99. From our review: "I mean, really, how can you resist a story that centers on a time-traveling pirate ship that can go anywhere someone’s taken the time to draw a map of?"
The Wednesday Wars is $1.99. This is a quirky charmer of a story about how Shakespeare can change your life, set in Vietnam-era New Jersey.
American Street is $1.99. This was one of our favorite books of 2017.
The Iron Trial is $1.99. From the fall 2014 issue: "Callum’s father has always taught him to avoid magic — so Callum is determined to do whatever it takes to get kicked out of the magical school he’s forced to attend."
Writing Magic: Creating Stories That Fly is $1.99. We recommend this in our great books for young writers list.
Stuff We Like :: 9.21.18
Philosophy at the movies, the privilege of evacuation, read a book and save the world, and more stuff we like.
I said, “If anything can save us, it’s philosophy,” as a joke yesterday, but I am starting to think that’s probably true.
WHAT’S HAPPENING AT HOME/SCHOOL/LIFE
One of my favorite things in life is finding philosophy at the movies. (With bonus Heidegger!)
Shelli’s reviews of the Birchbark House series will make you want to read the whole thing. When you’re studying U.S history, and you wonder where is the Native American Little House — here you go.
one year ago: 5 Things to Try When Your Child Can Read, but Doesn’t
two years ago: Are you ready for Hobbit Day? (Second breakfast, here I come!)
three years ago: In the Autumn of Unschooling: Shifting Gears for High School
four years ago: Tracy’s kids are launched now, but her wisdom about homeschooling high school still inspires me
THE LINKS I LIKED
I saw so many posts expressing frustration about people who didn’t evacuate for Florence, and I’m always annoyed by that, too, when I see people in dangerous situations on the news. But this piece did a great job explaining why leaving isn’t always an option, and why being able to evacuate is a kind of privilege that — like most kinds of privilege — we don’t even know we have.
This is awesome: A comic book to help you get comfortable with correct pronouns. (I am all for using people’s proper pronouns, but I find that my good grammar habit and ingrained Southern manners sometimes pop up out of nowhere and throw me off. It is humbling, and I am committed to doing better.)
WHAT I’M READING AND WATCHING
You know how sometimes you want to read a warm-and-fuzzy book about a nice family with lots of kids who live in a New York City brownstone and end up planting a secret garden in the vacant lot next door? Next time that reading urge strikes you, I can heartily recommend The Vanderbeekers and the Hidden Garden (the sequel to equally warm-and-fuzzy The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street). We enjoyed it as a readaloud.
THINGS MAKING ME HAPPY
I got this candle for my birthday, and I can’t stop smiling about it.
I cheated on my beloved Moleskine with a new notebook, and I don’t regret it at all.
This end-of-summer salad
(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.)
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for September 20, 2018
We rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 9/20/18.
Today's Best Book Deals for Your Homeschool
(Prices are correct as of the time of writing, but y'all know sales move fast — check before you click the buy button! These are Amazon links — read more about how we use affiliate links to help support some of the costs of the HSL blog here.)
Howl’s Moving Castle is $3.99. Sometimes a curse can be just what you needed, as Sophie discovers in this delightful fantasy about a hat maker's daughter who's cursed to premature old age by the Witch of the Waste. To break the curse, Sophie will need to team up with the mysterious wizard Howl, who happens to be stuck under a curse of his own — but first, she'll have to get to his castle, which has a habit of wandering around. I love this as a readaloud, on its own, or (of course) a companion piece to the equally wonderful (though often quite different) movie adaptation.
Still on sale
Howl’s Moving Castle is $3.99. Sometimes a curse can be just what you needed, as Sophie discovers in this delightful fantasy about a hat maker's daughter who's cursed to premature old age by the Witch of the Waste. To break the curse, Sophie will need to team up with the mysterious wizard Howl, who happens to be stuck under a curse of his own — but first, she'll have to get to his castle, which has a habit of wandering around. I love this as a readaloud, on its own, or (of course) a companion piece to the equally wonderful (though often quite different) movie adaptation.
Jackaby is $1.99. This first in the series (of which I am a fan) introduces the supernatural Sherlock Holmes and his new assistant, runaway young lady (who’d rather be a paleontologist) Abigail Rook.
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches is $1.99. More for teens and parents than younger readers, Audre Lorde tackles racism, sexism, homophobia, and other-ing in all its forms. The New York Times says: “Lorde's works will be important to those truly interested in growing up sensitive, intelligent, and aware.”
The Children of Henry VIII is $2.99 — and if you’re obsessed with all things Tudor, as I am, you’ll find this history of Henry’s heirs fascinating reading.
The Glass Town Game is just $0.99. I snagged this one as soon as I saw it since it made Suzanne’s Best of 2017 list — she says “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 Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World by E.L. Konigsburg is $0.99. This isn’t my favorite Konigsburg — but if this were any other author, this story about a new kid in town who dreams of discovering something new would be high on the list. Konigsburg just sets a really high bar for herself.
The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman's brilliant (and Pulitzer Prize-winning) history of the month leading up to World War I, is $1.99. Tuchman has a knack for weaving sophisticated historical details into a text that reads like a story, and I feel like a high school U.S. history student who skipped this book would be missing out. (At least read the first chapter, about Edward VII's funeral, together!)
Salt: A World History is $1.99. I love books like this that trace some apparently insignificant item through history; Library Journal says: "Deftly leading readers around the world and across cultures and centuries, he takes an inexpensive, mundane item and shows how it has influenced and affected wars, cultures, governments, religions, societies, economies, cooking (there are a few recipes), and foods." Sign me up.
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is $2.99. From Booklist: "Tommy and his friends think that Dwight is a weirdo who’s 'always talking about robots or spiders or something.' In true Dwight fashion, he shows up at school one day brandishing a little origami Yoda finger puppet. The really weird thing is that it doles out very un-Dwight-like bits of wisdom, and the mystery is whether the Yoda is just Dwight talking in a funny voice or if it actually has mystical powers." Hand this to your 4th to 6th grader who loves the Wimpy Kid series.
The Girl from Everywhere is $1.99. From our review: "I mean, really, how can you resist a story that centers on a time-traveling pirate ship that can go anywhere someone’s taken the time to draw a map of?"
The Wednesday Wars is $1.99. This is a quirky charmer of a story about how Shakespeare can change your life, set in Vietnam-era New Jersey.
American Street is $1.99. This was one of our favorite books of 2017.
The Iron Trial is $1.99. From the fall 2014 issue: "Callum’s father has always taught him to avoid magic — so Callum is determined to do whatever it takes to get kicked out of the magical school he’s forced to attend."
Writing Magic: Creating Stories That Fly is $1.99. We recommend this in our great books for young writers list.
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for September 19, 2018
We rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 9/19/18.
Today's Best Book Deals for Your Homeschool
(Prices are correct as of the time of writing, but y'all know sales move fast — check before you click the buy button! These are Amazon links — read more about how we use affiliate links to help support some of the costs of the HSL blog here.)
Jackaby is $1.99. This first in the series (of which I am a fan) introduces the supernatural Sherlock Holmes and his new assistant, runaway young lady (who’d rather be a paleontologist) Abigail Rook.
Still on sale
I am always raving about Peter Ackroyd, and several of his books in the History of England are on sale right now and totally worth a read if you’re into British history. Tudors: The History of England from Henry VIII to Elizabeth I is $2.99; Revolution: The History of England from the Battle of the Boyne to the Battle of Waterloo is $2.99; and Rebellion: The History of England from James I to the Glorious Revolution is $2.99.
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches is $1.99. More for teens and parents than younger readers, Audre Lorde tackles racism, sexism, homophobia, and other-ing in all its forms. The New York Times says: “Lorde's works will be important to those truly interested in growing up sensitive, intelligent, and aware.”
The Children of Henry VIII is $2.99 — and if you’re obsessed with all things Tudor, as I am, you’ll find this history of Henry’s heirs fascinating reading.
The Glass Town Game is just $0.99. I snagged this one as soon as I saw it since it made Suzanne’s Best of 2017 list — she says “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 Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World by E.L. Konigsburg is $0.99. This isn’t my favorite Konigsburg — but if this were any other author, this story about a new kid in town who dreams of discovering something new would be high on the list. Konigsburg just sets a really high bar for herself.
The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman's brilliant (and Pulitzer Prize-winning) history of the month leading up to World War I, is $1.99. Tuchman has a knack for weaving sophisticated historical details into a text that reads like a story, and I feel like a high school U.S. history student who skipped this book would be missing out. (At least read the first chapter, about Edward VII's funeral, together!)
Salt: A World History is $1.99. I love books like this that trace some apparently insignificant item through history; Library Journal says: "Deftly leading readers around the world and across cultures and centuries, he takes an inexpensive, mundane item and shows how it has influenced and affected wars, cultures, governments, religions, societies, economies, cooking (there are a few recipes), and foods." Sign me up.
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is $2.99. From Booklist: "Tommy and his friends think that Dwight is a weirdo who’s 'always talking about robots or spiders or something.' In true Dwight fashion, he shows up at school one day brandishing a little origami Yoda finger puppet. The really weird thing is that it doles out very un-Dwight-like bits of wisdom, and the mystery is whether the Yoda is just Dwight talking in a funny voice or if it actually has mystical powers." Hand this to your 4th to 6th grader who loves the Wimpy Kid series.
The Girl from Everywhere is $1.99. From our review: "I mean, really, how can you resist a story that centers on a time-traveling pirate ship that can go anywhere someone’s taken the time to draw a map of?"
The Wednesday Wars is $1.99. This is a quirky charmer of a story about how Shakespeare can change your life, set in Vietnam-era New Jersey.
American Street is $1.99. This was one of our favorite books of 2017.
The Iron Trial is $1.99. From the fall 2014 issue: "Callum’s father has always taught him to avoid magic — so Callum is determined to do whatever it takes to get kicked out of the magical school he’s forced to attend."
Writing Magic: Creating Stories That Fly is $1.99. We recommend this in our great books for young writers list.
Philosophy at the Movies
You can always start with the collected works of Plato, but these movies help introduce big philosophical ideas that may feel more accessible on the screen than on the page.
You can always start with the collected works of Plato, but these movies help introduce big philosophical ideas that may feel more accessible on the screen than on the page.
RASHOMON
The Big Idea: Reality—and truth—is subjective
Four people tell the story of a rape and murder, with conflicting and contradictory memories of the same event. The point isn’t that someone is lying but that everyone is telling the truth — it’s just that their truths don’t match, suggesting that truth isn’t the objective reality we think it is.
THE TRUMAN SHOW
The Big Idea: Plato’s Allegory of the Cave
This movie, about a lovable guy who has no idea his entire life is a television series that runs 24/7, is a modern take on Plato: We can never really be sure at any time that we’re living in the real world because there’s always the possibility that we’re not seeing what’s really here.
PI
The Big Idea: The ontology of numbers
When we talk about numbers, we’re actually talking about number values and relations based on a well-articulated body of philosophical principles that reflect our best attempt to maintain balance and harmony in the material, social, and ethical worlds. In other words, numbers have a kind of being — a fact this film illuminates.
THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY
The Big Idea: Objects ready-at-hand vs objects present-at-hand
Objects, like the Coke bottle in this movie, are ready-at-hand— their meaning is in their use, and in using them, we cease to notice them. Even unfamiliar objects, like the Coke bottle, may start out as objects present-at-hand, things to be considered for their qualities rather than their use, quickly become useful rather than contemplative objects.
GROUNDHOG DAY
The Big Idea: The Myth Of Sisyphus
Camus’s idea — that if we embrace the futility and unalterability of our fates, we recognize the absurdity of existence and can peacefully accept it — plays out when a weatherman finds himself stuck in a loop, living the same Groundhog Day over and over again.
I ♥ HUCKABEES
The Big Idea: The history of philosophy in a nutshell
Existentialism and Asian philosophy fight for dominance in this delightfully weird movie which operates as a loose, narrative exploration of the history of philosophy masquerading as a film about a popular department store.
This was originally published in the fall 2017 issue of HSL.
(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.)
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for September 18, 2018
We rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 9/18/18.
Today's Best Book Deals for Your Homeschool
(Prices are correct as of the time of writing, but y'all know sales move fast — check before you click the buy button! These are Amazon links — read more about how we use affiliate links to help support some of the costs of the HSL blog here.)
I am always raving about Peter Ackroyd, and several of his books in the History of England are on sale right now and totally worth a read if you’re into British history. Tudors: The History of England from Henry VIII to Elizabeth I is $2.99; Revolution: The History of England from the Battle of the Boyne to the Battle of Waterloo is $2.99; and Rebellion: The History of England from James I to the Glorious Revolution is $2.99.
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches is $1.99. More for teens and parents than younger readers, Audre Lorde tackles racism, sexism, homophobia, and other-ing in all its forms. The New York Times says: “Lorde's works will be important to those truly interested in growing up sensitive, intelligent, and aware.”
Still on sale
The Children of Henry VIII is $2.99 — and if you’re obsessed with all things Tudor, as I am, you’ll find this history of Henry’s heirs fascinating reading.
The Glass Town Game is just $0.99. I snagged this one as soon as I saw it since it made Suzanne’s Best of 2017 list — she says “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 Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World by E.L. Konigsburg is $0.99. This isn’t my favorite Konigsburg — but if this were any other author, this story about a new kid in town who dreams of discovering something new would be high on the list. Konigsburg just sets a really high bar for herself.
The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman's brilliant (and Pulitzer Prize-winning) history of the month leading up to World War I, is $1.99. Tuchman has a knack for weaving sophisticated historical details into a text that reads like a story, and I feel like a high school U.S. history student who skipped this book would be missing out. (At least read the first chapter, about Edward VII's funeral, together!)
Salt: A World History is $1.99. I love books like this that trace some apparently insignificant item through history; Library Journal says: "Deftly leading readers around the world and across cultures and centuries, he takes an inexpensive, mundane item and shows how it has influenced and affected wars, cultures, governments, religions, societies, economies, cooking (there are a few recipes), and foods." Sign me up.
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is $2.99. From Booklist: "Tommy and his friends think that Dwight is a weirdo who’s 'always talking about robots or spiders or something.' In true Dwight fashion, he shows up at school one day brandishing a little origami Yoda finger puppet. The really weird thing is that it doles out very un-Dwight-like bits of wisdom, and the mystery is whether the Yoda is just Dwight talking in a funny voice or if it actually has mystical powers." Hand this to your 4th to 6th grader who loves the Wimpy Kid series.
The Girl from Everywhere is $1.99. From our review: "I mean, really, how can you resist a story that centers on a time-traveling pirate ship that can go anywhere someone’s taken the time to draw a map of?"
The Wednesday Wars is $1.99. This is a quirky charmer of a story about how Shakespeare can change your life, set in Vietnam-era New Jersey.
American Street is $1.99. This was one of our favorite books of 2017.
The Iron Trial is $1.99. From the fall 2014 issue: "Callum’s father has always taught him to avoid magic — so Callum is determined to do whatever it takes to get kicked out of the magical school he’s forced to attend."
Writing Magic: Creating Stories That Fly is $1.99. We recommend this in our great books for young writers list.
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for September 17, 2018
We rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 9/17/18.
Today's Best Book Deals for Your Homeschool
(Prices are correct as of the time of writing, but y'all know sales move fast — check before you click the buy button! These are Amazon links — read more about how we use affiliate links to help support some of the costs of the HSL blog here.)
AUDIOBOOK DEAL: This price is for the Audible version of this book only. The ebook is not on sale.
The audiobook for The Bloody Chamber is $2.95. I went back and forth about including this because it’s really only for pretty mature high school students, but it’s such a great text, I couldn’t skip it. And high schoolers who are interested in feminist fairy tale narratives will find Angela Carter’s gruesome, provocative, and subversive fairy tales absolutely fascinating. (Plus Richard Armitage and Emilia Fox are the narrators!)
Still on sale
The Children of Henry VIII is $2.99 — and if you’re obsessed with all things Tudor, as I am, you’ll find this history of Henry’s heirs fascinating reading.
The Glass Town Game is just $0.99. I snagged this one as soon as I saw it since it made Suzanne’s Best of 2017 list — she says “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 Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World by E.L. Konigsburg is $0.99. This isn’t my favorite Konigsburg — but if this were any other author, this story about a new kid in town who dreams of discovering something new would be high on the list. Konigsburg just sets a really high bar for herself.
The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman's brilliant (and Pulitzer Prize-winning) history of the month leading up to World War I, is $1.99. Tuchman has a knack for weaving sophisticated historical details into a text that reads like a story, and I feel like a high school U.S. history student who skipped this book would be missing out. (At least read the first chapter, about Edward VII's funeral, together!)
Salt: A World History is $1.99. I love books like this that trace some apparently insignificant item through history; Library Journal says: "Deftly leading readers around the world and across cultures and centuries, he takes an inexpensive, mundane item and shows how it has influenced and affected wars, cultures, governments, religions, societies, economies, cooking (there are a few recipes), and foods." Sign me up.
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is $2.99. From Booklist: "Tommy and his friends think that Dwight is a weirdo who’s 'always talking about robots or spiders or something.' In true Dwight fashion, he shows up at school one day brandishing a little origami Yoda finger puppet. The really weird thing is that it doles out very un-Dwight-like bits of wisdom, and the mystery is whether the Yoda is just Dwight talking in a funny voice or if it actually has mystical powers." Hand this to your 4th to 6th grader who loves the Wimpy Kid series.
The Girl from Everywhere is $1.99. From our review: "I mean, really, how can you resist a story that centers on a time-traveling pirate ship that can go anywhere someone’s taken the time to draw a map of?"
The Wednesday Wars is $1.99. This is a quirky charmer of a story about how Shakespeare can change your life, set in Vietnam-era New Jersey.
American Street is $1.99. This was one of our favorite books of 2017.
The Iron Trial is $1.99. From the fall 2014 issue: "Callum’s father has always taught him to avoid magic — so Callum is determined to do whatever it takes to get kicked out of the magical school he’s forced to attend."
Writing Magic: Creating Stories That Fly is $1.99. We recommend this in our great books for young writers list.
Book Review: The Porcupine Year
Omakayas’s adventures continue as she and her family search for a new home.
The Porcupine Year by Louise Erdrich
The Porcupine Year is the third book in the “The Birchbark” series by Louise Erdrich, and while I loved The Birchbark House and The Game of Silence, I think this is my favorite book so far.
The story is set in 1852 and follows the journey of an Ojibwe family as they travel to find a new home. The opening chapters are my favorite as Omakayas, a 12-year-old girl, and her younger brother, Pinch, find themselves hurdling over some treacherous river rapids in their canoe. They are in such peril that they don’t even stop to consider how quickly they are moving away from their family or how they will get back to them once they land on shore, if they land on shore. However, the memegwesi, or water spirits, are there to guide them. On their adventure, Pinch finds a porcupine that will become his pet and change his name forever to Quill.
These opening scenes are only a precursor to the hardships that Omakayas and her family will endure on their journey, including a kidnapping by an enemy tribe, a betrayal by a trusted family member who steals everything they own, and loss of a loved one. Though it may sound bleak, and for awhile, it is, Louise Erdrich manages to balance the heartwrenching moments with beauty, love and humor.
I highly recommend this book to mature young readers, especially those who are interested in American history.
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for September 16, 2018
We rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 9/16/18.
Today's Best Book Deals for Your Homeschool
(Prices are correct as of the time of writing, but y'all know sales move fast — check before you click the buy button! These are Amazon links — read more about how we use affiliate links to help support some of the costs of the HSL blog here.)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is $2.99. When Christopher, who has autism, is accused murdering his neighbor’s dog, he channels his hero Sherlock Holmes to solve the mystery. Arthur Golden said: “"I have never read anything quite like Mark Haddon's funny and agonizingly honest book, or encountered a narrator more vivid and memorable.”
The Song of Achilles is $1.99. High school fans of Greek mythology and the Iliad will appreciate this take on the hero of the Trojan War and the love that would lead him to his destined doom.
Still on sale
The Children of Henry VIII is $2.99 — and if you’re obsessed with all things Tudor, as I am, you’ll find this history of Henry’s heirs fascinating reading.
The Glass Town Game is just $0.99. I snagged this one as soon as I saw it since it made Suzanne’s Best of 2017 list — she says “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 Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World by E.L. Konigsburg is $0.99. This isn’t my favorite Konigsburg — but if this were any other author, this story about a new kid in town who dreams of discovering something new would be high on the list. Konigsburg just sets a really high bar for herself.
The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman's brilliant (and Pulitzer Prize-winning) history of the month leading up to World War I, is $1.99. Tuchman has a knack for weaving sophisticated historical details into a text that reads like a story, and I feel like a high school U.S. history student who skipped this book would be missing out. (At least read the first chapter, about Edward VII's funeral, together!)
Salt: A World History is $1.99. I love books like this that trace some apparently insignificant item through history; Library Journal says: "Deftly leading readers around the world and across cultures and centuries, he takes an inexpensive, mundane item and shows how it has influenced and affected wars, cultures, governments, religions, societies, economies, cooking (there are a few recipes), and foods." Sign me up.
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is $2.99. From Booklist: "Tommy and his friends think that Dwight is a weirdo who’s 'always talking about robots or spiders or something.' In true Dwight fashion, he shows up at school one day brandishing a little origami Yoda finger puppet. The really weird thing is that it doles out very un-Dwight-like bits of wisdom, and the mystery is whether the Yoda is just Dwight talking in a funny voice or if it actually has mystical powers." Hand this to your 4th to 6th grader who loves the Wimpy Kid series.
The Girl from Everywhere is $1.99. From our review: "I mean, really, how can you resist a story that centers on a time-traveling pirate ship that can go anywhere someone’s taken the time to draw a map of?"
The Wednesday Wars is $1.99. This is a quirky charmer of a story about how Shakespeare can change your life, set in Vietnam-era New Jersey.
American Street is $1.99. This was one of our favorite books of 2017.
The Iron Trial is $1.99. From the fall 2014 issue: "Callum’s father has always taught him to avoid magic — so Callum is determined to do whatever it takes to get kicked out of the magical school he’s forced to attend."
Writing Magic: Creating Stories That Fly is $1.99. We recommend this in our great books for young writers list.
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for September 14, 2018
We rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 9/14/18.
Today's Best Book Deals for Your Homeschool
(Prices are correct as of the time of writing, but y'all know sales move fast — check before you click the buy button! These are Amazon links — read more about how we use affiliate links to help support some of the costs of the HSL blog here.)
The Children of Henry VIII is $2.99 — and if you’re obsessed with all things Tudor, as I am, you’ll find this history of Henry’s heirs fascinating reading.
Still on sale
The Color Purple is $1.99. It’s intense and profound and hard to read, but oh my gosh, when you’re ready for it, it’s a glorious celebration of the human spirit.
The Glass Town Game is just $0.99. I snagged this one as soon as I saw it since it made Suzanne’s Best of 2017 list — she says “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 Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World by E.L. Konigsburg is $0.99. This isn’t my favorite Konigsburg — but if this were any other author, this story about a new kid in town who dreams of discovering something new would be high on the list. Konigsburg just sets a really high bar for herself.
The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman's brilliant (and Pulitzer Prize-winning) history of the month leading up to World War I, is $1.99. Tuchman has a knack for weaving sophisticated historical details into a text that reads like a story, and I feel like a high school U.S. history student who skipped this book would be missing out. (At least read the first chapter, about Edward VII's funeral, together!)
Salt: A World History is $1.99. I love books like this that trace some apparently insignificant item through history; Library Journal says: "Deftly leading readers around the world and across cultures and centuries, he takes an inexpensive, mundane item and shows how it has influenced and affected wars, cultures, governments, religions, societies, economies, cooking (there are a few recipes), and foods." Sign me up.
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is $2.99. From Booklist: "Tommy and his friends think that Dwight is a weirdo who’s 'always talking about robots or spiders or something.' In true Dwight fashion, he shows up at school one day brandishing a little origami Yoda finger puppet. The really weird thing is that it doles out very un-Dwight-like bits of wisdom, and the mystery is whether the Yoda is just Dwight talking in a funny voice or if it actually has mystical powers." Hand this to your 4th to 6th grader who loves the Wimpy Kid series.
The Girl from Everywhere is $1.99. From our review: "I mean, really, how can you resist a story that centers on a time-traveling pirate ship that can go anywhere someone’s taken the time to draw a map of?"
The Wednesday Wars is $1.99. This is a quirky charmer of a story about how Shakespeare can change your life, set in Vietnam-era New Jersey.
American Street is $1.99. This was one of our favorite books of 2017.
The Iron Trial is $1.99. From the fall 2014 issue: "Callum’s father has always taught him to avoid magic — so Callum is determined to do whatever it takes to get kicked out of the magical school he’s forced to attend."
Writing Magic: Creating Stories That Fly is $1.99. We recommend this in our great books for young writers list.
Stuff We Like :: 9.14.18
Librarians are always going to be the coolest people in a room, another reason to brave the Ikea parking lot, John Quincy Adams’s forgotten epic, calling out sexism in reading lists, and more stuff we like.
It’s my birthday, so have a drink tonight to celebrate with me!
what’s happening at home/school/life
Collecting resources for a DIY curriculum is easy. Figuring out how to organize and use them? Not so much. Maggie has a plan, though.
Learn more about libraries.
So many good books are on sale right now, it’s ridiculous, including The Glass Town Game, which Suzanne raved about last year. (I just started it!)
one year ago: Shelli’s strategies for planning daily lessons
two years ago: Molly sees the seeds she planted in her early homeschool years start to bloom.
three years ago: Shelli makes peace with homeschool messes.
the links I liked
Lauren Groff called out the sexism in The New York Times’ By the Book column, saying: “Something invisible and pernicious seems to be preventing even good literary men from either reaching for books with women’s names on the spines, or from summoning women’s books to mind when asked to list their influences. I wonder what such a thing could possibly be.” And she was right: When the columns were analyzed, male authors recommended books by male writers four times more often than they recommended books by women. (Women split their picks pretty evenly between men and women.)
Librarians are basically book-finding superheroes.
Did you know John Quincy Adams wrote an EPIC POEM set in 12th century Ireland? (Spoiler: It is NOT a literary masterpiece.)
Ikea has completed its transformation into the place I would be most likely to wait out a zombie apocalypse. (The gist: Now there are reading rooms — and you can take your book home with you if you’re not barricading against zombie attacks.)
We were just talking about this: Why do all U.S. cities feel the same now?
What I’m reading and watching
I loved Arcanos Unraveled, which was pretty much everything I loved about The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic plus knitting (!) and a not-terrible ending. Anya Winter is a hedge witch who teaches enchanted textiles at a magical college, and her fabric-based magic may be the only thing that can save the magical world from an evil plot. I was charmed.
My son recently discovered the Danny Dunn series (it’s a 1950s series that kicks off with Danny Dunn and the Anti-Gravity Paint), and he’s been giggling his way through it. I think he’s partially charmed by how dated some parts of it are, but he also seems to genuinely enjoy the adventures of Danny, whose mom works as a housekeeper for the eccentric Professor Bullfinch. In every book, Danny manages to get into one of the professor’s high-tech inventions (and they’re awesomely 50s high-tech inventions), and problems ensue.
Next up: The Casual Vacancy. I’m always looking for a good old-fashioned mystery, so maybe this one will fit the bill.
Things making me happy
Nigella’s honey cake (for a sweet new year)
My new shoes (I found them at the thrift store for $15!)
The new season of The Good Place is coming!
This sentence diagramming poster
These knitted pencil toppers (I feel like my daughter would love them all!)
(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.)
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for September 13, 2018
We rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 9/13/18.
Today's Best Book Deals for Your Homeschool
(Prices are correct as of the time of writing, but y'all know sales move fast — check before you click the buy button! These are Amazon links — read more about how we use affiliate links to help support some of the costs of the HSL blog here.)
The Color Purple is $1.99. It’s intense and profound and hard to read, but oh my gosh, when you’re ready for it, it’s a glorious celebration of the human spirit.
Still on sale
The Glass Town Game is just $0.99. I snagged this one as soon as I saw it since it made Suzanne’s Best of 2017 list — she says “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 Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World by E.L. Konigsburg is $0.99. This isn’t my favorite Konigsburg — but if this were any other author, this story about a new kid in town who dreams of discovering something new would be high on the list. Konigsburg just sets a really high bar for herself.
The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman's brilliant (and Pulitzer Prize-winning) history of the month leading up to World War I, is $1.99. Tuchman has a knack for weaving sophisticated historical details into a text that reads like a story, and I feel like a high school U.S. history student who skipped this book would be missing out. (At least read the first chapter, about Edward VII's funeral, together!)
Salt: A World History is $1.99. I love books like this that trace some apparently insignificant item through history; Library Journal says: "Deftly leading readers around the world and across cultures and centuries, he takes an inexpensive, mundane item and shows how it has influenced and affected wars, cultures, governments, religions, societies, economies, cooking (there are a few recipes), and foods." Sign me up.
Sorcery and Cecelia, or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot is $1.99, and Suzanne and I are never going to stop recommending this epistolary novel set in a Jane Austen-ish world with magic.
Six of Crows is $2.99. We've recommended Bardugo's Grisha-verse trilogy as a binge-worthy series more than once, and this book returns to that world with a story of six talented people commissioned to pull off an impossible heist.
The Celery Stalks at Midnight — the third installment in the irresistible elementary series Bunnicula — is $0.99. The continuing adventures of the Holmes and Watson-ish family dogs and the (maybe) vegetarian vampire bunny are good, silly fun.
Rooftoppers is just $0.99. I am always surprised more people haven't heard of this lovely little book — Phillip Pullman likes it, too! — about a maybe-orphan in search of her origins on the rooftops of Paris.
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is $2.99. From Booklist: "Tommy and his friends think that Dwight is a weirdo who’s 'always talking about robots or spiders or something.' In true Dwight fashion, he shows up at school one day brandishing a little origami Yoda finger puppet. The really weird thing is that it doles out very un-Dwight-like bits of wisdom, and the mystery is whether the Yoda is just Dwight talking in a funny voice or if it actually has mystical powers." Hand this to your 4th to 6th grader who loves the Wimpy Kid series.
The Girl from Everywhere is $1.99. From our review: "I mean, really, how can you resist a story that centers on a time-traveling pirate ship that can go anywhere someone’s taken the time to draw a map of?"
The Wednesday Wars is $1.99. This is a quirky charmer of a story about how Shakespeare can change your life, set in Vietnam-era New Jersey.
American Street is $1.99. This was one of our favorite books of 2017.
The Iron Trial is $1.99. From the fall 2014 issue: "Callum’s father has always taught him to avoid magic — so Callum is determined to do whatever it takes to get kicked out of the magical school he’s forced to attend."
Writing Magic: Creating Stories That Fly is $1.99. We recommend this in our great books for young writers list.
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for September 12, 2018
We rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 9/12/18.
Today's Best Book Deals for Your Homeschool
(Prices are correct as of the time of writing, but y'all know sales move fast — check before you click the buy button! These are Amazon links — read more about how we use affiliate links to help support some of the costs of the HSL blog here.)
The Wild Robot is $2.99. I loved this book, which is a philosophical mash-up of a survival story and a what-does-it-mean-to-be-human thought experiment — it sounds like it shouldn’t work for middle grade readers, but it totally does.
Still on sale
The Glass Town Game is just $0.99. I snagged this one as soon as I saw it since it made Suzanne’s Best of 2017 list — she says “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 Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World by E.L. Konigsburg is $0.99. This isn’t my favorite Konigsburg — but if this were any other author, this story about a new kid in town who dreams of discovering something new would be high on the list. Konigsburg just sets a really high bar for herself.
The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman's brilliant (and Pulitzer Prize-winning) history of the month leading up to World War I, is $1.99. Tuchman has a knack for weaving sophisticated historical details into a text that reads like a story, and I feel like a high school U.S. history student who skipped this book would be missing out. (At least read the first chapter, about Edward VII's funeral, together!)
Salt: A World History is $1.99. I love books like this that trace some apparently insignificant item through history; Library Journal says: "Deftly leading readers around the world and across cultures and centuries, he takes an inexpensive, mundane item and shows how it has influenced and affected wars, cultures, governments, religions, societies, economies, cooking (there are a few recipes), and foods." Sign me up.
Sorcery and Cecelia, or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot is $1.99, and Suzanne and I are never going to stop recommending this epistolary novel set in a Jane Austen-ish world with magic.
Six of Crows is $2.99. We've recommended Bardugo's Grisha-verse trilogy as a binge-worthy series more than once, and this book returns to that world with a story of six talented people commissioned to pull off an impossible heist.
The Celery Stalks at Midnight — the third installment in the irresistible elementary series Bunnicula — is $0.99. The continuing adventures of the Holmes and Watson-ish family dogs and the (maybe) vegetarian vampire bunny are good, silly fun.
Rooftoppers is just $0.99. I am always surprised more people haven't heard of this lovely little book — Phillip Pullman likes it, too! — about a maybe-orphan in search of her origins on the rooftops of Paris.
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is $2.99. From Booklist: "Tommy and his friends think that Dwight is a weirdo who’s 'always talking about robots or spiders or something.' In true Dwight fashion, he shows up at school one day brandishing a little origami Yoda finger puppet. The really weird thing is that it doles out very un-Dwight-like bits of wisdom, and the mystery is whether the Yoda is just Dwight talking in a funny voice or if it actually has mystical powers." Hand this to your 4th to 6th grader who loves the Wimpy Kid series.
The Girl from Everywhere is $1.99. From our review: "I mean, really, how can you resist a story that centers on a time-traveling pirate ship that can go anywhere someone’s taken the time to draw a map of?"
The Wednesday Wars is $1.99. This is a quirky charmer of a story about how Shakespeare can change your life, set in Vietnam-era New Jersey.
American Street is $1.99. This was one of our favorite books of 2017.
The Iron Trial is $1.99. From the fall 2014 issue: "Callum’s father has always taught him to avoid magic — so Callum is determined to do whatever it takes to get kicked out of the magical school he’s forced to attend."
Writing Magic: Creating Stories That Fly is $1.99. We recommend this in our great books for young writers list.
Little Unit Study: Learn More About Libraries
Homeschoolers and libraries go together like Junior Mints and popcorn. That’s why a little library unit study makes the perfect homeschool project.
Homeschoolers and libraries go together like Junior Mints and popcorn. That’s why a little library unit study makes the perfect homeschool project.
Since you’re practically funding it with all those fines (please tell me it’s not just me!) and you could legitimately refer to it as your family’s “vacation house,” doesn’t it just make sense to learn a little more about the library?
READ THIS
The Library: An Illustrated History by Stuart A.P. Murphy is a comprehensive introduction to library history. Older kids might like it as a readaloud, but it’s also a resource for parents looking for those little tidbits (before the invention of the printing press, librarians would chain books to their shelves to prevent theft) that make history come alive.
For a quick, succinct look at library history, check out Survivor: The History of the Library, a History magazine article focused on how libraries survived for centuries against the odds.
TRY THIS
Make a card catalog of your schoolbooks, including cards for author, title, and subject for easier reference. Sure, card catalogs are computerized now, but the old-fashioned art of book organization can help you keep school shelves under control.
Bring a notebook on your next library trip, and let your kids map the children’s section. Then you can check the map to see where to look for the books on next week’s list. If your kids are older or more ambitious, they can map the entire library.
Put together a library scavenger hunt, where seekers hunt for things like a book with knitting patterns, a collection of fairy tales, a book about how to take care of cats, or a black-and- white movie.
Learning the Dewey Decimal System is a rite of passage for young library patrons. Middle Tennessee State University's Let’s Do Dewey guide is designed to help college-student librarians return books to their rightful homes, so it's full of helpful tips and practical advice.
KNOW THIS
Kids may be surprised to learn that some of their favorite authors—including Lewis Carroll, Madeleine L’Engle, and Joanna Cole were librarians. Parents will appreciate the fact that Casanova worked as a librarian. (No wonder he got all the girls.)
Flavorwire’s roundup of strange looking libraries around the world includes the bizarrely modern Aberdeen University Library and the rhombicuboctahedron-shaped National Library of Belarus.
(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.)
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for September 11, 2018
We rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 9/11/18.
Today's Best Book Deals for Your Homeschool
(Prices are correct as of the time of writing, but y'all know sales move fast — check before you click the buy button! These are Amazon links — read more about how we use affiliate links to help support some of the costs of the HSL blog here.)
The Glass Town Game is just $0.99. I snagged this one as soon as I saw it since it made Suzanne’s Best of 2017 list — she says “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 Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World by E.L. Konigsburg is $0.99. This isn’t my favorite Konigsburg — but if this were any other author, this story about a new kid in town who dreams of discovering something new would be high on the list. Konigsburg just sets a really high bar for herself.
Still on sale
The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman's brilliant (and Pulitzer Prize-winning) history of the month leading up to World War I, is $1.99. Tuchman has a knack for weaving sophisticated historical details into a text that reads like a story, and I feel like a high school U.S. history student who skipped this book would be missing out. (At least read the first chapter, about Edward VII's funeral, together!)
Salt: A World History is $1.99. I love books like this that trace some apparently insignificant item through history; Library Journal says: "Deftly leading readers around the world and across cultures and centuries, he takes an inexpensive, mundane item and shows how it has influenced and affected wars, cultures, governments, religions, societies, economies, cooking (there are a few recipes), and foods." Sign me up.
Sorcery and Cecelia, or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot is $1.99, and Suzanne and I are never going to stop recommending this epistolary novel set in a Jane Austen-ish world with magic.
Six of Crows is $2.99. We've recommended Bardugo's Grisha-verse trilogy as a binge-worthy series more than once, and this book returns to that world with a story of six talented people commissioned to pull off an impossible heist.
The Celery Stalks at Midnight — the third installment in the irresistible elementary series Bunnicula — is $0.99. The continuing adventures of the Holmes and Watson-ish family dogs and the (maybe) vegetarian vampire bunny are good, silly fun.
Rooftoppers is just $0.99. I am always surprised more people haven't heard of this lovely little book — Phillip Pullman likes it, too! — about a maybe-orphan in search of her origins on the rooftops of Paris.
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is $2.99. From Booklist: "Tommy and his friends think that Dwight is a weirdo who’s 'always talking about robots or spiders or something.' In true Dwight fashion, he shows up at school one day brandishing a little origami Yoda finger puppet. The really weird thing is that it doles out very un-Dwight-like bits of wisdom, and the mystery is whether the Yoda is just Dwight talking in a funny voice or if it actually has mystical powers." Hand this to your 4th to 6th grader who loves the Wimpy Kid series.
The Girl from Everywhere is $1.99. From our review: "I mean, really, how can you resist a story that centers on a time-traveling pirate ship that can go anywhere someone’s taken the time to draw a map of?"
The Wednesday Wars is $1.99. This is a quirky charmer of a story about how Shakespeare can change your life, set in Vietnam-era New Jersey.
American Street is $1.99. This was one of our favorite books of 2017.
The Iron Trial is $1.99. From the fall 2014 issue: "Callum’s father has always taught him to avoid magic — so Callum is determined to do whatever it takes to get kicked out of the magical school he’s forced to attend."
Writing Magic: Creating Stories That Fly is $1.99. We recommend this in our great books for young writers list.
Need a new series for winter readaloud season? We have a few ideas.