HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for December 13, 2018
Exit West and other great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 12/13/18.
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.)
Exit West is $1.99. This was one of my favorite books last year: “I was shell-shocked by this book in all the best possible ways. Hamid weaves a thread of magical realism through the all-too-real portrait of a city on the edge of war, making the story of Saeed and Nadia both an unlikely love story and a haunting tale of refugee life. It’s difficult, and gorgeous, and definitely worth reading.”
Still on sale
To Say Nothing of the Dog is $1.99 — and definitely right up there on Amy’s list of all-time favorite books. From our great time travel reads list: “If you read only one of Connie Willis’ time travel books, make it this one. Historian Ned Henry needs a break, but he’s not going to get one when he time travels to Victorian England in this P.G. Wodehouse-meets-Doctor Who romp of a book.”
And Then There Were None is $1.99. The suspense builds over the course of this mystery classic as ten people with spotted pasts realize that they've been lured to a posh but deserted island to be murdered, one by one, by a vigilante who wants them to pay for their crimes and who—they slowly realize—must be one of their number. It's both tense and intense, and don't start it unless you're ready to read it through to the end. (The recent BBC adaptation does a great job capturing the book's atmospheric suspense.) A great book for your high school summer reading list.
The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street is $1.99. I can’t recommend this book (and its follow-up The Vanderbeekers and the Hidden Garden) enough if you like cozy, big family stories full of quiet little adventures. The Vanderbeeker family — two parents, five children, a dog, a cat, and a bunny — live in Harlem, where their adventures include dance competitions, building Rube Goldberg machines, and exploring their community. They remind me of modern day Melendys!
The Things They Carried is $2.99. From our Vietnam war studies reading list in the fall 2017 issue: “‘If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie,’ says O’Brien’s narrator, the connecting link in a series of stories about the war. It’s interesting to consider why O’Brien — who actually served as an infantryman in Vietnam — chose to make his memoir fiction, especially in the context of his essential premise that war stories must necessarily be immoral.”
Conrad’s Fate is $3.99. Conrad’s creepy uncle has warned him that the key to overturning his bad luck lies in finding the wizard who did him wrong in a past life — so Conrad’s gone undercover at the estate on the hill to do just that. But he’s not the only one with an ulterior motive for working as a servant, he discovers, when he meets his new roommate, and things are definitely not normal at the mansion, where reality is prone to making abrupt changes at any time. You don’t have to read Diana Wynne Jones’s Chrestomanci series in any particular order, but I do think this one has a lot of inside jokes for people who’ve already met reluctant Chrestomanci Christopher and Millie in The Lives of Christopher Chant.
The one-volume edition of the Lord of the Rings trilogy is $2.99. When it comes to fantasy, there’s clearly Tolkien-fantasy and non-Tolkien-fantasy — his Middle Earth epic has been that important in the development of the genre. You may already have it on your bookshelf, but this is a great deal if you want to have the whole series handy in case of emergency airport layovers or vacations where you don’t want to pay the extra baggage fee for your books! (You may also enjoy: Gift ideas for people who love The Hobbit.)
The Glass Universe is $1.99. I love this book about the oft-forgotten women of the Harvard College Observatory, whose work would shape huge chunks of modern astronomy knowledge. I like doing this as a unit study with Hidden Figures.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is $2.99 — and one of my all-time favorite Agatha Christie mysteries. From our Agatha Christie book/movie list: “The premise is simple enough — a newly retired Hercule Poirot agrees to investigate the murder of wealthy Roger Ackroyd. But this book turns the detective novel on its head in the best possible way. No wonder the Crime Writers’ Association voted it the best crime novel ever written.”
What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions is $2.99. From our fall 2014 review: “XKCD creator Munroe tackles questions from “What if there were no moon?” to “How many elements in the periodic table can kill you?”
Code Name Verity is $1.99. Speaking of World War II fiction, this YA novel, according to Kirkus Reviews, is “a carefully researched, precisely written tour de force; unforgettable and wrenching.”
The Lie Tree is $2.45. Even when I don’t especially like Hardinge’s work, I find it so interesting, and this book — about a 19th century English girl who gets caught up in the era’s intellectual battle between evolutionary theory and traditional faith when she sets out to solve the murder of her priest/amateur archaeologist father — is no exception. I had some nits to pick, particularly with the resolution, but this one’s totally worth reading.
Horton Halfpott : Or, The Fiendish Mystery of Smugwick Manor; or, The Loosening of M'Lady Luggertuck's Corset is $2.99 — and if that title doesn’t make you smile, steer clear, because this middle grades tongue-in-cheek take on Dickens, Upstairs Downstairs, and Gothic lit totally lives up to its slightly ridiculous, utterly delightful name.
Gregor the Overlander is $3.99. This fantasy epic takes place in a world deep beneath the city streets, where cockroaches, rats, and spiders have an uneasy truce with the Underlander humans. When Gregor accidentally plunges into the world, following his little sister, the Underlanders think he may be the hero of their ancient prophesy.
George is $3.99. “While George has no doubt she's a girl, her family relates to her as they always have: as a boy. George hopes that if she can secure the role of Charlotte in her class's upcoming production of Charlotte's Web, her mom will finally see her as a girl and be able to come to terms with the fact that George is transgender. With the help of her closest ally, Kelly, George attempts to get the rest of the world to accept her as she is,” says School Library Journal.
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
The Game of Silence is $1.99. Shelli loves this series about an Ojibwe girl navigating changes during U.S. westward migration: “The book opens with Omakayas standing on the shore of her home, an island in Lake Superior. In the far distance, she sees strange people approaching. Once they arrive, her family finds that these people are Anishinabeg people too. (We call them the Ojibwe or Chippewa people now.) They are haggard, hungry, and some of them have lost members of their family. Among them is a baby boy who has lost his parents, and now he becomes Omakayas’s new baby brother. These people are refugees who have been pushed out of their homes by the chimookomanag, or white people, and as the story unfolds, Omakayas’s family realizes that they, too, must leave their homes.”
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.
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for December 12, 2018
Connie Willis, Agatha Christie, and other great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 12/12/18.
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.)
To Say Nothing of the Dog is $1.99 — and definitely right up there on Amy’s list of all-time favorite books. From our great time travel reads list: “If you read only one of Connie Willis’ time travel books, make it this one. Historian Ned Henry needs a break, but he’s not going to get one when he time travels to Victorian England in this P.G. Wodehouse-meets-Doctor Who romp of a book.”
And Then There Were None is $1.99. The suspense builds over the course of this mystery classic as ten people with spotted pasts realize that they've been lured to a posh but deserted island to be murdered, one by one, by a vigilante who wants them to pay for their crimes and who—they slowly realize—must be one of their number. It's both tense and intense, and don't start it unless you're ready to read it through to the end. (The recent BBC adaptation does a great job capturing the book's atmospheric suspense.) A great book for your high school summer reading list.
Still on sale
The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street is $1.99. I can’t recommend this book (and its follow-up The Vanderbeekers and the Hidden Garden) enough if you like cozy, big family stories full of quiet little adventures. The Vanderbeeker family — two parents, five children, a dog, a cat, and a bunny — live in Harlem, where their adventures include dance competitions, building Rube Goldberg machines, and exploring their community. They remind me of modern day Melendys!
The Things They Carried is $2.99. From our Vietnam war studies reading list in the fall 2017 issue: “‘If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie,’ says O’Brien’s narrator, the connecting link in a series of stories about the war. It’s interesting to consider why O’Brien — who actually served as an infantryman in Vietnam — chose to make his memoir fiction, especially in the context of his essential premise that war stories must necessarily be immoral.”
Conrad’s Fate is $3.99. Conrad’s creepy uncle has warned him that the key to overturning his bad luck lies in finding the wizard who did him wrong in a past life — so Conrad’s gone undercover at the estate on the hill to do just that. But he’s not the only one with an ulterior motive for working as a servant, he discovers, when he meets his new roommate, and things are definitely not normal at the mansion, where reality is prone to making abrupt changes at any time. You don’t have to read Diana Wynne Jones’s Chrestomanci series in any particular order, but I do think this one has a lot of inside jokes for people who’ve already met reluctant Chrestomanci Christopher and Millie in The Lives of Christopher Chant.
The one-volume edition of the Lord of the Rings trilogy is $2.99. When it comes to fantasy, there’s clearly Tolkien-fantasy and non-Tolkien-fantasy — his Middle Earth epic has been that important in the development of the genre. You may already have it on your bookshelf, but this is a great deal if you want to have the whole series handy in case of emergency airport layovers or vacations where you don’t want to pay the extra baggage fee for your books! (You may also enjoy: Gift ideas for people who love The Hobbit.)
The Glass Universe is $1.99. I love this book about the oft-forgotten women of the Harvard College Observatory, whose work would shape huge chunks of modern astronomy knowledge. I like doing this as a unit study with Hidden Figures.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is $2.99 — and one of my all-time favorite Agatha Christie mysteries. From our Agatha Christie book/movie list: “The premise is simple enough — a newly retired Hercule Poirot agrees to investigate the murder of wealthy Roger Ackroyd. But this book turns the detective novel on its head in the best possible way. No wonder the Crime Writers’ Association voted it the best crime novel ever written.”
What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions is $2.99. From our fall 2014 review: “XKCD creator Munroe tackles questions from “What if there were no moon?” to “How many elements in the periodic table can kill you?”
Code Name Verity is $1.99. Speaking of World War II fiction, this YA novel, according to Kirkus Reviews, is “a carefully researched, precisely written tour de force; unforgettable and wrenching.”
The Lie Tree is $2.45. Even when I don’t especially like Hardinge’s work, I find it so interesting, and this book — about a 19th century English girl who gets caught up in the era’s intellectual battle between evolutionary theory and traditional faith when she sets out to solve the murder of her priest/amateur archaeologist father — is no exception. I had some nits to pick, particularly with the resolution, but this one’s totally worth reading.
Horton Halfpott : Or, The Fiendish Mystery of Smugwick Manor; or, The Loosening of M'Lady Luggertuck's Corset is $2.99 — and if that title doesn’t make you smile, steer clear, because this middle grades tongue-in-cheek take on Dickens, Upstairs Downstairs, and Gothic lit totally lives up to its slightly ridiculous, utterly delightful name.
Gregor the Overlander is $3.99. This fantasy epic takes place in a world deep beneath the city streets, where cockroaches, rats, and spiders have an uneasy truce with the Underlander humans. When Gregor accidentally plunges into the world, following his little sister, the Underlanders think he may be the hero of their ancient prophesy.
George is $3.99. “While George has no doubt she's a girl, her family relates to her as they always have: as a boy. George hopes that if she can secure the role of Charlotte in her class's upcoming production of Charlotte's Web, her mom will finally see her as a girl and be able to come to terms with the fact that George is transgender. With the help of her closest ally, Kelly, George attempts to get the rest of the world to accept her as she is,” says School Library Journal.
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
The Game of Silence is $1.99. Shelli loves this series about an Ojibwe girl navigating changes during U.S. westward migration: “The book opens with Omakayas standing on the shore of her home, an island in Lake Superior. In the far distance, she sees strange people approaching. Once they arrive, her family finds that these people are Anishinabeg people too. (We call them the Ojibwe or Chippewa people now.) They are haggard, hungry, and some of them have lost members of their family. Among them is a baby boy who has lost his parents, and now he becomes Omakayas’s new baby brother. These people are refugees who have been pushed out of their homes by the chimookomanag, or white people, and as the story unfolds, Omakayas’s family realizes that they, too, must leave their homes.”
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.
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for December 10, 2018
Mary Poppins, The Things They Carried, and other great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 12/10/18.
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 four-book Mary Poppins collection — including Mary Poppins: Mary Poppins, Mary Poppins Comes Back, Mary Poppins Opens the Door, and Mary Poppins in the Park — is $2.99. Travers’ Mary Poppins is darker and more subversive than the Disney film version, but whichever take you prefer, this collection is the perfect readaloud preparation for the upcoming Mary Poppins Returns.
The Things They Carried is $2.99. From our Vietnam war studies reading list in the fall 2017 issue: “‘If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie,’ says O’Brien’s narrator, the connecting link in a series of stories about the war. It’s interesting to consider why O’Brien — who actually served as an infantryman in Vietnam — chose to make his memoir fiction, especially in the context of his essential premise that war stories must necessarily be immoral.”
Still on sale
Conrad’s Fate is $3.99. Conrad’s creepy uncle has warned him that the key to overturning his bad luck lies in finding the wizard who did him wrong in a past life — so Conrad’s gone undercover at the estate on the hill to do just that. But he’s not the only one with an ulterior motive for working as a servant, he discovers, when he meets his new roommate, and things are definitely not normal at the mansion, where reality is prone to making abrupt changes at any time. You don’t have to read Diana Wynne Jones’s Chrestomanci series in any particular order, but I do think this one has a lot of inside jokes for people who’ve already met reluctant Chrestomanci Christopher and Millie in The Lives of Christopher Chant.
A Skinful of Shadows is $2.99. Hardinge’s books have an eerie otherness that sneaks up on you as you read, and this tale of a girl during the English Civil War with the ability to be possessed by ghosts is no exception. The Observer said: “Hardinge's tale of ghosts, Puritans, and shaping your own destiny is an unmissable, hypnotic treat.”
The one-volume edition of the Lord of the Rings trilogy is $2.99. When it comes to fantasy, there’s clearly Tolkien-fantasy and non-Tolkien-fantasy — his Middle Earth epic has been that important in the development of the genre. You may already have it on your bookshelf, but this is a great deal if you want to have the whole series handy in case of emergency airport layovers or vacations where you don’t want to pay the extra baggage fee for your books! (You may also enjoy: Gift ideas for people who love The Hobbit.)
The Glass Universe is $1.99. I love this book about the oft-forgotten women of the Harvard College Observatory, whose work would shape huge chunks of modern astronomy knowledge. I like doing this as a unit study with Hidden Figures.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is $2.99 — and one of my all-time favorite Agatha Christie mysteries. From our Agatha Christie book/movie list: “The premise is simple enough — a newly retired Hercule Poirot agrees to investigate the murder of wealthy Roger Ackroyd. But this book turns the detective novel on its head in the best possible way. No wonder the Crime Writers’ Association voted it the best crime novel ever written.”
What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions is $2.99. From our fall 2014 review: “XKCD creator Munroe tackles questions from “What if there were no moon?” to “How many elements in the periodic table can kill you?”
Code Name Verity is $1.99. Speaking of World War II fiction, this YA novel, according to Kirkus Reviews, is “a carefully researched, precisely written tour de force; unforgettable and wrenching.”
The Lie Tree is $2.45. Even when I don’t especially like Hardinge’s work, I find it so interesting, and this book — about a 19th century English girl who gets caught up in the era’s intellectual battle between evolutionary theory and traditional faith when she sets out to solve the murder of her priest/amateur archaeologist father — is no exception. I had some nits to pick, particularly with the resolution, but this one’s totally worth reading.
Horton Halfpott : Or, The Fiendish Mystery of Smugwick Manor; or, The Loosening of M'Lady Luggertuck's Corset is $2.99 — and if that title doesn’t make you smile, steer clear, because this middle grades tongue-in-cheek take on Dickens, Upstairs Downstairs, and Gothic lit totally lives up to its slightly ridiculous, utterly delightful name.
Gregor the Overlander is $3.99. This fantasy epic takes place in a world deep beneath the city streets, where cockroaches, rats, and spiders have an uneasy truce with the Underlander humans. When Gregor accidentally plunges into the world, following his little sister, the Underlanders think he may be the hero of their ancient prophesy.
George is $3.99. “While George has no doubt she's a girl, her family relates to her as they always have: as a boy. George hopes that if she can secure the role of Charlotte in her class's upcoming production of Charlotte's Web, her mom will finally see her as a girl and be able to come to terms with the fact that George is transgender. With the help of her closest ally, Kelly, George attempts to get the rest of the world to accept her as she is,” says School Library Journal.
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
The Game of Silence is $1.99. Shelli loves this series about an Ojibwe girl navigating changes during U.S. westward migration: “The book opens with Omakayas standing on the shore of her home, an island in Lake Superior. In the far distance, she sees strange people approaching. Once they arrive, her family finds that these people are Anishinabeg people too. (We call them the Ojibwe or Chippewa people now.) They are haggard, hungry, and some of them have lost members of their family. Among them is a baby boy who has lost his parents, and now he becomes Omakayas’s new baby brother. These people are refugees who have been pushed out of their homes by the chimookomanag, or white people, and as the story unfolds, Omakayas’s family realizes that they, too, must leave their homes.”
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.
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for December 9, 2018
Diana Wynne Jones and other great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 12/9/18.
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.)
Conrad’s Fate is $3.99. Conrad’s creepy uncle has warned him that the key to overturning his bad luck lies in finding the wizard who did him wrong in a past life — so Conrad’s gone undercover at the estate on the hill to do just that. But he’s not the only one with an ulterior motive for working as a servant, he discovers, when he meets his new roommate, and things are definitely not normal at the mansion, where reality is prone to making abrupt changes at any time. You don’t have to read Diana Wynne Jones’s Chrestomanci series in any particular order, but I do think this one has a lot of inside jokes for people who’ve already met reluctant Chrestomanci Christopher and Millie in The Lives of Christopher Chant.
Still on sale
A Skinful of Shadows is $2.99. Hardinge’s books have an eerie otherness that sneaks up on you as you read, and this tale of a girl during the English Civil War with the ability to be possessed by ghosts is no exception. The Observer said: “Hardinge's tale of ghosts, Puritans, and shaping your own destiny is an unmissable, hypnotic treat.”
The one-volume edition of the Lord of the Rings trilogy is $2.99. When it comes to fantasy, there’s clearly Tolkien-fantasy and non-Tolkien-fantasy — his Middle Earth epic has been that important in the development of the genre. You may already have it on your bookshelf, but this is a great deal if you want to have the whole series handy in case of emergency airport layovers or vacations where you don’t want to pay the extra baggage fee for your books! (You may also enjoy: Gift ideas for people who love The Hobbit.)
The Glass Universe is $1.99. I love this book about the oft-forgotten women of the Harvard College Observatory, whose work would shape huge chunks of modern astronomy knowledge. I like doing this as a unit study with Hidden Figures.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is $2.99 — and one of my all-time favorite Agatha Christie mysteries. From our Agatha Christie book/movie list: “The premise is simple enough — a newly retired Hercule Poirot agrees to investigate the murder of wealthy Roger Ackroyd. But this book turns the detective novel on its head in the best possible way. No wonder the Crime Writers’ Association voted it the best crime novel ever written.”
What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions is $2.99. From our fall 2014 review: “XKCD creator Munroe tackles questions from “What if there were no moon?” to “How many elements in the periodic table can kill you?”
Code Name Verity is $1.99. Speaking of World War II fiction, this YA novel, according to Kirkus Reviews, is “a carefully researched, precisely written tour de force; unforgettable and wrenching.”
The Lie Tree is $2.45. Even when I don’t especially like Hardinge’s work, I find it so interesting, and this book — about a 19th century English girl who gets caught up in the era’s intellectual battle between evolutionary theory and traditional faith when she sets out to solve the murder of her priest/amateur archaeologist father — is no exception. I had some nits to pick, particularly with the resolution, but this one’s totally worth reading.
Horton Halfpott : Or, The Fiendish Mystery of Smugwick Manor; or, The Loosening of M'Lady Luggertuck's Corset is $2.99 — and if that title doesn’t make you smile, steer clear, because this middle grades tongue-in-cheek take on Dickens, Upstairs Downstairs, and Gothic lit totally lives up to its slightly ridiculous, utterly delightful name.
Gregor the Overlander is $3.99. This fantasy epic takes place in a world deep beneath the city streets, where cockroaches, rats, and spiders have an uneasy truce with the Underlander humans. When Gregor accidentally plunges into the world, following his little sister, the Underlanders think he may be the hero of their ancient prophesy.
George is $3.99. “While George has no doubt she's a girl, her family relates to her as they always have: as a boy. George hopes that if she can secure the role of Charlotte in her class's upcoming production of Charlotte's Web, her mom will finally see her as a girl and be able to come to terms with the fact that George is transgender. With the help of her closest ally, Kelly, George attempts to get the rest of the world to accept her as she is,” says School Library Journal.
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
The Game of Silence is $1.99. Shelli loves this series about an Ojibwe girl navigating changes during U.S. westward migration: “The book opens with Omakayas standing on the shore of her home, an island in Lake Superior. In the far distance, she sees strange people approaching. Once they arrive, her family finds that these people are Anishinabeg people too. (We call them the Ojibwe or Chippewa people now.) They are haggard, hungry, and some of them have lost members of their family. Among them is a baby boy who has lost his parents, and now he becomes Omakayas’s new baby brother. These people are refugees who have been pushed out of their homes by the chimookomanag, or white people, and as the story unfolds, Omakayas’s family realizes that they, too, must leave their homes.”
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.
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for December 8, 2018
Tons of Tolkien and other great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 12/8/18.
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 one-volume edition of the Lord of the Rings trilogy is $1.99. When it comes to fantasy, there’s clearly Tolkien-fantasy and non-Tolkien-fantasy — his Middle Earth epic has been that important in the development of the genre. You may already have it on your bookshelf, but this is a great deal if you want to have the whole series handy in case of emergency airport layovers or vacations where you don’t want to pay the extra baggage fee for your books! (You may also enjoy: Gift ideas for people who love The Hobbit.)
More deals today in the world of Middle Earth: The Hobbit (my personal favorite Tolkien book) is $2.99 and so is The Silmarillion.
A Skinful of Shadows is $2.99. Hardinge’s books have an eerie otherness that sneaks up on you as you read, and this tale of a girl during the English Civil War with the ability to be possessed by ghosts is no exception. The Observer said: “Hardinge's tale of ghosts, Puritans, and shaping your own destiny is an unmissable, hypnotic treat.”
Still on sale
The Glass Universe is $1.99. I love this book about the oft-forgotten women of the Harvard College Observatory, whose work would shape huge chunks of modern astronomy knowledge. I like doing this as a unit study with Hidden Figures.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is $2.99 — and one of my all-time favorite Agatha Christie mysteries. From our Agatha Christie book/movie list: “The premise is simple enough — a newly retired Hercule Poirot agrees to investigate the murder of wealthy Roger Ackroyd. But this book turns the detective novel on its head in the best possible way. No wonder the Crime Writers’ Association voted it the best crime novel ever written.”
What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions is $2.99. From our fall 2014 review: “XKCD creator Munroe tackles questions from “What if there were no moon?” to “How many elements in the periodic table can kill you?”
Code Name Verity is $1.99. Speaking of World War II fiction, this YA novel, according to Kirkus Reviews, is “a carefully researched, precisely written tour de force; unforgettable and wrenching.”
The Lie Tree is $2.45. Even when I don’t especially like Hardinge’s work, I find it so interesting, and this book — about a 19th century English girl who gets caught up in the era’s intellectual battle between evolutionary theory and traditional faith when she sets out to solve the murder of her priest/amateur archaeologist father — is no exception. I had some nits to pick, particularly with the resolution, but this one’s totally worth reading.
Horton Halfpott : Or, The Fiendish Mystery of Smugwick Manor; or, The Loosening of M'Lady Luggertuck's Corset is $2.99 — and if that title doesn’t make you smile, steer clear, because this middle grades tongue-in-cheek take on Dickens, Upstairs Downstairs, and Gothic lit totally lives up to its slightly ridiculous, utterly delightful name.
Gregor the Overlander is $3.99. This fantasy epic takes place in a world deep beneath the city streets, where cockroaches, rats, and spiders have an uneasy truce with the Underlander humans. When Gregor accidentally plunges into the world, following his little sister, the Underlanders think he may be the hero of their ancient prophesy.
George is $3.99. “While George has no doubt she's a girl, her family relates to her as they always have: as a boy. George hopes that if she can secure the role of Charlotte in her class's upcoming production of Charlotte's Web, her mom will finally see her as a girl and be able to come to terms with the fact that George is transgender. With the help of her closest ally, Kelly, George attempts to get the rest of the world to accept her as she is,” says School Library Journal.
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
The Game of Silence is $1.99. Shelli loves this series about an Ojibwe girl navigating changes during U.S. westward migration: “The book opens with Omakayas standing on the shore of her home, an island in Lake Superior. In the far distance, she sees strange people approaching. Once they arrive, her family finds that these people are Anishinabeg people too. (We call them the Ojibwe or Chippewa people now.) They are haggard, hungry, and some of them have lost members of their family. Among them is a baby boy who has lost his parents, and now he becomes Omakayas’s new baby brother. These people are refugees who have been pushed out of their homes by the chimookomanag, or white people, and as the story unfolds, Omakayas’s family realizes that they, too, must leave their homes.”
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.
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for December 7, 2018
The Girl with the Red Balloon and other great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 12/7/18.
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 Girl with the Red Balloon is $0.99. In this time travel thriller, the granddaughter of a German Holocaust survivor takes a school trip to modern day Berlin — finds herself transported to East Berlin in 1988. (It’s the first in a YA series.)
Still on sale
The Glass Universe is $1.99. I love this book about the oft-forgotten women of the Harvard College Observatory, whose work would shape huge chunks of modern astronomy knowledge. I like doing this as a unit study with Hidden Figures.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is $2.99 — and one of my all-time favorite Agatha Christie mysteries. From our Agatha Christie book/movie list: “The premise is simple enough — a newly retired Hercule Poirot agrees to investigate the murder of wealthy Roger Ackroyd. But this book turns the detective novel on its head in the best possible way. No wonder the Crime Writers’ Association voted it the best crime novel ever written.”
What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions is $2.99. From our fall 2014 review: “XKCD creator Munroe tackles questions from “What if there were no moon?” to “How many elements in the periodic table can kill you?”
Code Name Verity is $1.99. Speaking of World War II fiction, this YA novel, according to Kirkus Reviews, is “a carefully researched, precisely written tour de force; unforgettable and wrenching.”
Interpreter of Maladies is $2.99. Suzanne said: “This slim but celebrated collection from Indian-American author Lahiri lived up to its reputation for me: I thoroughly enjoyed her melancholy but fascinating stories of culture clash,” and I’m always going to include at least one of Lahiri’s books on any immigration stories reading list.
The Lie Tree is $2.57. Even when I don’t especially like Hardinge’s work, I find it so interesting, and this book — about a 19th century English girl who gets caught up in the era’s intellectual battle between evolutionary theory and traditional faith when she sets out to solve the murder of her priest/amateur archaeologist father — is no exception. I had some nits to pick, particularly with the resolution, but this one’s totally worth reading.
Horton Halfpott : Or, The Fiendish Mystery of Smugwick Manor; or, The Loosening of M'Lady Luggertuck's Corset is $2.99 — and if that title doesn’t make you smile, steer clear, because this middle grades tongue-in-cheek take on Dickens, Upstairs Downstairs, and Gothic lit totally lives up to its slightly ridiculous, utterly delightful name.
Gregor the Overlander is $3.99. This fantasy epic takes place in a world deep beneath the city streets, where cockroaches, rats, and spiders have an uneasy truce with the Underlander humans. When Gregor accidentally plunges into the world, following his little sister, the Underlanders think he may be the hero of their ancient prophesy.
Seveneves is $2.99. This hard sci-fi story is a great follow-up for fans of The Martian. What would happen if the surface of the Earth suddenly became uninhabitable? In Stephenson’s world, scientists band together to create a tiny space colony of chosen survivors, a task that comes with constant technical challenges that need to be scienced if humanity is going to stand a chance of survival. (The first part is stronger than the second, but I always feel that way about Stephenson’s books.)
George is $3.99. “While George has no doubt she's a girl, her family relates to her as they always have: as a boy. George hopes that if she can secure the role of Charlotte in her class's upcoming production of Charlotte's Web, her mom will finally see her as a girl and be able to come to terms with the fact that George is transgender. With the help of her closest ally, Kelly, George attempts to get the rest of the world to accept her as she is,” says School Library Journal.
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
The Game of Silence is $1.99. Shelli loves this series about an Ojibwe girl navigating changes during U.S. westward migration: “The book opens with Omakayas standing on the shore of her home, an island in Lake Superior. In the far distance, she sees strange people approaching. Once they arrive, her family finds that these people are Anishinabeg people too. (We call them the Ojibwe or Chippewa people now.) They are haggard, hungry, and some of them have lost members of their family. Among them is a baby boy who has lost his parents, and now he becomes Omakayas’s new baby brother. These people are refugees who have been pushed out of their homes by the chimookomanag, or white people, and as the story unfolds, Omakayas’s family realizes that they, too, must leave their homes.”
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.
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for December 6, 2018
Superhero squirrels and other great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 12/6/18.
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.)
Flora and Ulysses is $3.27 — an oddly specific price for a charming graphic novel about a cynical girl and superhero squirrel. When Flora rescues an errant squirrel from her neighbor’s super-powered new vacuum cleaner, the squirrel emerges with superpowers, launching the duo on a series of adventures. According to School Library Journal: “There are plenty of action sequences, but the novel primarily dwells in the realm of sensitive, hopeful, and quietly philosophical literature.”
Still on sale
The Glass Universe is $1.99. I love this book about the oft-forgotten women of the Harvard College Observatory, whose work would shape huge chunks of modern astronomy knowledge. I like doing this as a unit study with Hidden Figures.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is $2.99 — and one of my all-time favorite Agatha Christie mysteries. From our Agatha Christie book/movie list: “The premise is simple enough — a newly retired Hercule Poirot agrees to investigate the murder of wealthy Roger Ackroyd. But this book turns the detective novel on its head in the best possible way. No wonder the Crime Writers’ Association voted it the best crime novel ever written.”
What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions is $2.99. From our fall 2014 review: “XKCD creator Munroe tackles questions from “What if there were no moon?” to “How many elements in the periodic table can kill you?”
Code Name Verity is $1.99. Speaking of World War II fiction, this YA novel, according to Kirkus Reviews, is “a carefully researched, precisely written tour de force; unforgettable and wrenching.”
Interpreter of Maladies is $2.99. Suzanne said: “This slim but celebrated collection from Indian-American author Lahiri lived up to its reputation for me: I thoroughly enjoyed her melancholy but fascinating stories of culture clash,” and I’m always going to include at least one of Lahiri’s books on any immigration stories reading list.
The Lie Tree is $2.57. Even when I don’t especially like Hardinge’s work, I find it so interesting, and this book — about a 19th century English girl who gets caught up in the era’s intellectual battle between evolutionary theory and traditional faith when she sets out to solve the murder of her priest/amateur archaeologist father — is no exception. I had some nits to pick, particularly with the resolution, but this one’s totally worth reading.
Horton Halfpott : Or, The Fiendish Mystery of Smugwick Manor; or, The Loosening of M'Lady Luggertuck's Corset is $2.99 — and if that title doesn’t make you smile, steer clear, because this middle grades tongue-in-cheek take on Dickens, Upstairs Downstairs, and Gothic lit totally lives up to its slightly ridiculous, utterly delightful name.
Gregor the Overlander is $3.99. This fantasy epic takes place in a world deep beneath the city streets, where cockroaches, rats, and spiders have an uneasy truce with the Underlander humans. When Gregor accidentally plunges into the world, following his little sister, the Underlanders think he may be the hero of their ancient prophesy.
Seveneves is $2.99. This hard sci-fi story is a great follow-up for fans of The Martian. What would happen if the surface of the Earth suddenly became uninhabitable? In Stephenson’s world, scientists band together to create a tiny space colony of chosen survivors, a task that comes with constant technical challenges that need to be scienced if humanity is going to stand a chance of survival. (The first part is stronger than the second, but I always feel that way about Stephenson’s books.)
George is $3.99. “While George has no doubt she's a girl, her family relates to her as they always have: as a boy. George hopes that if she can secure the role of Charlotte in her class's upcoming production of Charlotte's Web, her mom will finally see her as a girl and be able to come to terms with the fact that George is transgender. With the help of her closest ally, Kelly, George attempts to get the rest of the world to accept her as she is,” says School Library Journal.
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
The Game of Silence is $1.99. Shelli loves this series about an Ojibwe girl navigating changes during U.S. westward migration: “The book opens with Omakayas standing on the shore of her home, an island in Lake Superior. In the far distance, she sees strange people approaching. Once they arrive, her family finds that these people are Anishinabeg people too. (We call them the Ojibwe or Chippewa people now.) They are haggard, hungry, and some of them have lost members of their family. Among them is a baby boy who has lost his parents, and now he becomes Omakayas’s new baby brother. These people are refugees who have been pushed out of their homes by the chimookomanag, or white people, and as the story unfolds, Omakayas’s family realizes that they, too, must leave their homes.”
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.
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for December 5, 2018
The Wild Robot and other great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 12/5/18.
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. As you know, I quite like it — one of the big questions of our middle school reading list is “What does it mean to be human?,” and this tale of a robot making a life for herself on island is a great addition to that discussion. From our review: “It may feel like an “easy” middle grades read, but I really think that’s the right audience. The ending is similarly complex — don’t expect a simple “and they all lived happily ever” at the end. For me, it sits firmly in the “delightful” category. It’s a lovely story all on its own, but it’s also got beautifully rewarding layers for deeper reading and conversation. Plus, the illustrations are great!”
Still on sale
The Glass Universe is $1.99. I love this book about the oft-forgotten women of the Harvard College Observatory, whose work would shape huge chunks of modern astronomy knowledge. I like doing this as a unit study with Hidden Figures.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is $2.99 — and one of my all-time favorite Agatha Christie mysteries. From our Agatha Christie book/movie list: “The premise is simple enough — a newly retired Hercule Poirot agrees to investigate the murder of wealthy Roger Ackroyd. But this book turns the detective novel on its head in the best possible way. No wonder the Crime Writers’ Association voted it the best crime novel ever written.”
What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions is $2.99. From our fall 2014 review: “XKCD creator Munroe tackles questions from “What if there were no moon?” to “How many elements in the periodic table can kill you?”
Code Name Verity is $1.99. Speaking of World War II fiction, this YA novel, according to Kirkus Reviews, is “a carefully researched, precisely written tour de force; unforgettable and wrenching.”
Interpreter of Maladies is $2.99. Suzanne said: “This slim but celebrated collection from Indian-American author Lahiri lived up to its reputation for me: I thoroughly enjoyed her melancholy but fascinating stories of culture clash,” and I’m always going to include at least one of Lahiri’s books on any immigration stories reading list.
The Lie Tree is $2.57. Even when I don’t especially like Hardinge’s work, I find it so interesting, and this book — about a 19th century English girl who gets caught up in the era’s intellectual battle between evolutionary theory and traditional faith when she sets out to solve the murder of her priest/amateur archaeologist father — is no exception. I had some nits to pick, particularly with the resolution, but this one’s totally worth reading.
Horton Halfpott : Or, The Fiendish Mystery of Smugwick Manor; or, The Loosening of M'Lady Luggertuck's Corset is $2.99 — and if that title doesn’t make you smile, steer clear, because this middle grades tongue-in-cheek take on Dickens, Upstairs Downstairs, and Gothic lit totally lives up to its slightly ridiculous, utterly delightful name.
Gregor the Overlander is $3.99. This fantasy epic takes place in a world deep beneath the city streets, where cockroaches, rats, and spiders have an uneasy truce with the Underlander humans. When Gregor accidentally plunges into the world, following his little sister, the Underlanders think he may be the hero of their ancient prophesy.
Seveneves is $2.99. This hard sci-fi story is a great follow-up for fans of The Martian. What would happen if the surface of the Earth suddenly became uninhabitable? In Stephenson’s world, scientists band together to create a tiny space colony of chosen survivors, a task that comes with constant technical challenges that need to be scienced if humanity is going to stand a chance of survival. (The first part is stronger than the second, but I always feel that way about Stephenson’s books.)
George is $3.99. “While George has no doubt she's a girl, her family relates to her as they always have: as a boy. George hopes that if she can secure the role of Charlotte in her class's upcoming production of Charlotte's Web, her mom will finally see her as a girl and be able to come to terms with the fact that George is transgender. With the help of her closest ally, Kelly, George attempts to get the rest of the world to accept her as she is,” says School Library Journal.
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
The Game of Silence is $1.99. Shelli loves this series about an Ojibwe girl navigating changes during U.S. westward migration: “The book opens with Omakayas standing on the shore of her home, an island in Lake Superior. In the far distance, she sees strange people approaching. Once they arrive, her family finds that these people are Anishinabeg people too. (We call them the Ojibwe or Chippewa people now.) They are haggard, hungry, and some of them have lost members of their family. Among them is a baby boy who has lost his parents, and now he becomes Omakayas’s new baby brother. These people are refugees who have been pushed out of their homes by the chimookomanag, or white people, and as the story unfolds, Omakayas’s family realizes that they, too, must leave their homes.”
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.
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for December 4, 2018
Monsters in the Arctic, women in astronomy, and other great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 12/4/18.
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 Terror is $2.99, and apparently Suzanne will accost you on the street about how great it is: “I LOVE THIS BOOK. Simmons takes the historical story of Sir John Franklin’s lost 1847 expedition to find the Northwest Passage—which already involves polar bears, scurvy, and cannibalism—and adds SNOW MONSTERS. It is completely and utterly awesome. I first read it about 10 years ago, and immediately went around grabbing both friends and strangers on the street to tell them YOU MUST READ THIS.”
The Glass Universe is $1.99. I love this book about the oft-forgotten women of the Harvard College Observatory, whose work would shape huge chunks of modern astronomy knowledge. I like doing this as a unit study with Hidden Figures.
Still on sale
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is $2.99 — and one of my all-time favorite Agatha Christie mysteries. From our Agatha Christie book/movie list: “The premise is simple enough — a newly retired Hercule Poirot agrees to investigate the murder of wealthy Roger Ackroyd. But this book turns the detective novel on its head in the best possible way. No wonder the Crime Writers’ Association voted it the best crime novel ever written.”
What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions is $2.99. From our fall 2014 review: “XKCD creator Munroe tackles questions from “What if there were no moon?” to “How many elements in the periodic table can kill you?”
Math with Bad Drawings: Illuminating the Ideas That Shape Our Reality is $3.99. I love the Math with Bad Drawings blog, so it’s not surprising that this book is one of my favorite math books ever. From the publisher: “A hilarious reeducation in mathematics-full of joy, jokes, and stick figures-that sheds light on the countless practical and wonderful ways that math structures and shapes our world.”
Code Name Verity is $1.99. Speaking of World War II fiction, this YA novel, according to Kirkus Reviews, is “a carefully researched, precisely written tour de force; unforgettable and wrenching.”
Number the Stars is $2.99. This Newbery award winner chronicles a little known piece of World War II history, in which the Danish resistance rescued 7,000 Jews by sending them to Sweden when word got out about the German plan to round up Jews and relocate them to concentration camps. Reading about the atrocities of World War II can be hard, and this book reminds me of Mr. Rogers saying that when something terrible happens, we should look for the helpers. This book does that, and I always put it on my WW2 reading lists because of that.
Interpreter of Maladies is $2.99. Suzanne said: “This slim but celebrated collection from Indian-American author Lahiri lived up to its reputation for me: I thoroughly enjoyed her melancholy but fascinating stories of culture clash,” and I’m always going to include at least one of Lahiri’s books on any immigration stories reading list.
Truly Devious is $1.99. From our summer 2018 reading list: “Ellingham Academy is one of the most competitive private schools in the country—and also the scene of one of the country’s most notorious unsolved mysteries. New student Stevie Bell is determined to put her true crime obsession to work on Elligham’s famous cold case, but the murderer may not be ancient history after all.” My caveat: This is the first in a series, so if you can’t stand cliffhangers, buy it cheap but wait to read it until the series wraps — this first book has a particularly frustrating cliffhanger ending.
The Lie Tree is $2.81. Even when I don’t especially like Hardinge’s work, I find it so interesting, and this book — about a 19th century English girl who gets caught up in the era’s intellectual battle between evolutionary theory and traditional faith when she sets out to solve the murder of her priest/amateur archaeologist father — is no exception. I had some nits to pick, particularly with the resolution, but this one’s totally worth reading.
Dread Nation is $1.99. Suzanne loved this alternate history novel: “What’s that you say? Ireland has written an alternate history zombie novel, where the dead rise during the Civil War, after the battle of Gettysburg? Where black people, ostensibly freed from slavery, are sent to zombie-fighting schools to protect the white folks from danger? WHY YES I WOULD LIKE TO READ THAT VERY MUCH PLEASE. And I’m happy to report that it does not disappoint. I found this book simultaneously upsetting and hopeful, both in its content and the way it resonates with the current political climate. Another great YA choice (I think this one is officially YA? I don’t understand how these decisions are made) and I’m very excited that it appears to be the start of a series — I WOULD LIKE THE NEXT ONE NOW PLEASE AND THANK YOU.”
The Giver is $2.99. From our middle school reading list: “What cost does utopia have? How important is freedom? Tweens are ready to tackle those ambiguous questions right along with young Jonah in this deceptively simple novel.”
Travels with Charley in Search of America is $1.99. Steinbeck’s travelogue was one of road trip must-reads in the summer 2017 issue of HSL: “Steinbeck spent most of his career writing about the United States as both a setting and a metaphor for his characters’ experiences, so it seems fitting that in his late life, he set off on a three-month trip to revisit his United States and discover it again with his pet poodle Charley as co-pilot.”
Between the World and Me is $2.99. I don’t like to be evangelical about books and shout “everybody should read this!” but I make an exception for this slim tome, which I do think is a must-read in our modern world. And Suzanne agrees: “You’ve read this, right? If not, please do. I was surprised to find that it was such a slim, undersized book—I almost didn’t see it on the shelf. I am not a newcomer to the idea of white privilege (though I don’t claim to be very far down the path as the process of understanding and changing perspective and learning from others is always ongoing) but I was surprised (and embarrassed) by how challenging I found it at times. It was a wonderful, powerful read—go pick it up. I know I’ll be reading it again.”
Ungifted is $1.99. To be honest, I don’t love the trope that smart kids aren’t good at all the stuff outside the classroom — smart people I’ve known are as diverse as any other group — but if that doesn’t bother you, this is a fun and funny book about a middle school troublemaker who accidentally gets sent to a school for the gifted and talented, where he shakes up — well, pretty much everything.
Horton Halfpott : Or, The Fiendish Mystery of Smugwick Manor; or, The Loosening of M'Lady Luggertuck's Corset is $2.99 — and if that title doesn’t make you smile, steer clear, because this middle grades tongue-in-cheek take on Dickens, Upstairs Downstairs, and Gothic lit totally lives up to its slightly ridiculous, utterly delightful name.
Gregor the Overlander is $3.99. This fantasy epic takes place in a world deep beneath the city streets, where cockroaches, rats, and spiders have an uneasy truce with the Underlander humans. When Gregor accidentally plunges into the world, following his little sister, the Underlanders think he may be the hero of their ancient prophesy.
Seveneves is $2.99. This hard sci-fi story is a great follow-up for fans of The Martian. What would happen if the surface of the Earth suddenly became uninhabitable? In Stephenson’s world, scientists band together to create a tiny space colony of chosen survivors, a task that comes with constant technical challenges that need to be scienced if humanity is going to stand a chance of survival. (The first part is stronger than the second, but I always feel that way about Stephenson’s books.)
Atonement is $2.99 — and while the sadness at its heart makes it a hard read if you’re in a dark headspace yourself, I think, it’s a gorgeous novel about the perils and pleasures of writing and the lingering shadow of guilt that can’t be absolved. I’d put it on a World War II reading list since you already know that’s going to be sad but rewarding.
George is $3.99. “While George has no doubt she's a girl, her family relates to her as they always have: as a boy. George hopes that if she can secure the role of Charlotte in her class's upcoming production of Charlotte's Web, her mom will finally see her as a girl and be able to come to terms with the fact that George is transgender. With the help of her closest ally, Kelly, George attempts to get the rest of the world to accept her as she is,” says School Library Journal.
Moxie is $2.99. I adored this book about a girl whose underground zine accidentally starts a feminist revolution at her Texas high school. (It was one of our favorite books of 2017!)
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
The Game of Silence is $1.99. Shelli loves this series about an Ojibwe girl navigating changes during U.S. westward migration: “The book opens with Omakayas standing on the shore of her home, an island in Lake Superior. In the far distance, she sees strange people approaching. Once they arrive, her family finds that these people are Anishinabeg people too. (We call them the Ojibwe or Chippewa people now.) They are haggard, hungry, and some of them have lost members of their family. Among them is a baby boy who has lost his parents, and now he becomes Omakayas’s new baby brother. These people are refugees who have been pushed out of their homes by the chimookomanag, or white people, and as the story unfolds, Omakayas’s family realizes that they, too, must leave their homes.”
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.
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for December 3, 2018
Serious answers to hypothetical questions and other great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 12/3/18.
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.)
What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions is $2.99. From our fall 2014 review: “XKCD creator Munroe tackles questions from “What if there were no moon?” to “How many elements in the periodic table can kill you?”
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is $2.99 — and one of my all-time favorite Agatha Christie mysteries. From our Agatha Christie book/movie list: “The premise is simple enough — a newly retired Hercule Poirot agrees to investigate the murder of wealthy Roger Ackroyd. But this book turns the detective novel on its head in the best possible way. No wonder the Crime Writers’ Association voted it the best crime novel ever written.”
Still on sale
Math with Bad Drawings: Illuminating the Ideas That Shape Our Reality is $3.99. I love the Math with Bad Drawings blog, so it’s not surprising that this book is one of my favorite math books ever. From the publisher: “A hilarious reeducation in mathematics-full of joy, jokes, and stick figures-that sheds light on the countless practical and wonderful ways that math structures and shapes our world.”
Code Name Verity is $1.99. Speaking of World War II fiction, this YA novel, according to Kirkus Reviews, is “a carefully researched, precisely written tour de force; unforgettable and wrenching.”
Number the Stars is $2.99. This Newbery award winner chronicles a little known piece of World War II history, in which the Danish resistance rescued 7,000 Jews by sending them to Sweden when word got out about the German plan to round up Jews and relocate them to concentration camps. Reading about the atrocities of World War II can be hard, and this book reminds me of Mr. Rogers saying that when something terrible happens, we should look for the helpers. This book does that, and I always put it on my WW2 reading lists because of that.
Interpreter of Maladies is $2.99. Suzanne said: “This slim but celebrated collection from Indian-American author Lahiri lived up to its reputation for me: I thoroughly enjoyed her melancholy but fascinating stories of culture clash,” and I’m always going to include at least one of Lahiri’s books on any immigration stories reading list.
Truly Devious is $1.99. From our summer 2018 reading list: “Ellingham Academy is one of the most competitive private schools in the country—and also the scene of one of the country’s most notorious unsolved mysteries. New student Stevie Bell is determined to put her true crime obsession to work on Elligham’s famous cold case, but the murderer may not be ancient history after all.” My caveat: This is the first in a series, so if you can’t stand cliffhangers, buy it cheap but wait to read it until the series wraps — this first book has a particularly frustrating cliffhanger ending.
The Lie Tree is $2.81. Even when I don’t especially like Hardinge’s work, I find it so interesting, and this book — about a 19th century English girl who gets caught up in the era’s intellectual battle between evolutionary theory and traditional faith when she sets out to solve the murder of her priest/amateur archaeologist father — is no exception. I had some nits to pick, particularly with the resolution, but this one’s totally worth reading.
Dread Nation is $1.99. Suzanne loved this alternate history novel: “What’s that you say? Ireland has written an alternate history zombie novel, where the dead rise during the Civil War, after the battle of Gettysburg? Where black people, ostensibly freed from slavery, are sent to zombie-fighting schools to protect the white folks from danger? WHY YES I WOULD LIKE TO READ THAT VERY MUCH PLEASE. And I’m happy to report that it does not disappoint. I found this book simultaneously upsetting and hopeful, both in its content and the way it resonates with the current political climate. Another great YA choice (I think this one is officially YA? I don’t understand how these decisions are made) and I’m very excited that it appears to be the start of a series — I WOULD LIKE THE NEXT ONE NOW PLEASE AND THANK YOU.”
The Giver is $2.99. From our middle school reading list: “What cost does utopia have? How important is freedom? Tweens are ready to tackle those ambiguous questions right along with young Jonah in this deceptively simple novel.”
Travels with Charley in Search of America is $1.99. Steinbeck’s travelogue was one of road trip must-reads in the summer 2017 issue of HSL: “Steinbeck spent most of his career writing about the United States as both a setting and a metaphor for his characters’ experiences, so it seems fitting that in his late life, he set off on a three-month trip to revisit his United States and discover it again with his pet poodle Charley as co-pilot.”
Between the World and Me is $2.99. I don’t like to be evangelical about books and shout “everybody should read this!” but I make an exception for this slim tome, which I do think is a must-read in our modern world. And Suzanne agrees: “You’ve read this, right? If not, please do. I was surprised to find that it was such a slim, undersized book—I almost didn’t see it on the shelf. I am not a newcomer to the idea of white privilege (though I don’t claim to be very far down the path as the process of understanding and changing perspective and learning from others is always ongoing) but I was surprised (and embarrassed) by how challenging I found it at times. It was a wonderful, powerful read—go pick it up. I know I’ll be reading it again.”
Ungifted is $1.99. To be honest, I don’t love the trope that smart kids aren’t good at all the stuff outside the classroom — smart people I’ve known are as diverse as any other group — but if that doesn’t bother you, this is a fun and funny book about a middle school troublemaker who accidentally gets sent to a school for the gifted and talented, where he shakes up — well, pretty much everything.
Horton Halfpott : Or, The Fiendish Mystery of Smugwick Manor; or, The Loosening of M'Lady Luggertuck's Corset is $2.99 — and if that title doesn’t make you smile, steer clear, because this middle grades tongue-in-cheek take on Dickens, Upstairs Downstairs, and Gothic lit totally lives up to its slightly ridiculous, utterly delightful name.
Gregor the Overlander is $3.99. This fantasy epic takes place in a world deep beneath the city streets, where cockroaches, rats, and spiders have an uneasy truce with the Underlander humans. When Gregor accidentally plunges into the world, following his little sister, the Underlanders think he may be the hero of their ancient prophesy.
Seveneves is $2.99. This hard sci-fi story is a great follow-up for fans of The Martian. What would happen if the surface of the Earth suddenly became uninhabitable? In Stephenson’s world, scientists band together to create a tiny space colony of chosen survivors, a task that comes with constant technical challenges that need to be scienced if humanity is going to stand a chance of survival. (The first part is stronger than the second, but I always feel that way about Stephenson’s books.)
Atonement is $2.99 — and while the sadness at its heart makes it a hard read if you’re in a dark headspace yourself, I think, it’s a gorgeous novel about the perils and pleasures of writing and the lingering shadow of guilt that can’t be absolved. I’d put it on a World War II reading list since you already know that’s going to be sad but rewarding.
George is $3.99. “While George has no doubt she's a girl, her family relates to her as they always have: as a boy. George hopes that if she can secure the role of Charlotte in her class's upcoming production of Charlotte's Web, her mom will finally see her as a girl and be able to come to terms with the fact that George is transgender. With the help of her closest ally, Kelly, George attempts to get the rest of the world to accept her as she is,” says School Library Journal.
Moxie is $2.99. I adored this book about a girl whose underground zine accidentally starts a feminist revolution at her Texas high school. (It was one of our favorite books of 2017!)
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
The Game of Silence is $1.99. Shelli loves this series about an Ojibwe girl navigating changes during U.S. westward migration: “The book opens with Omakayas standing on the shore of her home, an island in Lake Superior. In the far distance, she sees strange people approaching. Once they arrive, her family finds that these people are Anishinabeg people too. (We call them the Ojibwe or Chippewa people now.) They are haggard, hungry, and some of them have lost members of their family. Among them is a baby boy who has lost his parents, and now he becomes Omakayas’s new baby brother. These people are refugees who have been pushed out of their homes by the chimookomanag, or white people, and as the story unfolds, Omakayas’s family realizes that they, too, must leave their homes.”
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.
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for December 2, 2018
A Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe and other great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 12/2/18.
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 Skeptics' Guide to the Universe: How to Know What's Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake is $2.99. I haven’t actually read this one yet, but it’s on my TBR list — and I figure if I snap it up for myself, it’s worth sharing, right? Neil de Grasse Tyson says, “Thorough, informative, and enlightening, The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe inoculates you against the frailties and shortcomings of human cognition. If this book does not become required reading for us all, we may well see modern civilization unravel before our eyes” — and I’m always going to listen to what he has to say.
Math with Bad Drawings: Illuminating the Ideas That Shape Our Reality is $3.99. I love the Math with Bad Drawings blog, so it’s not surprising that this book is one of my favorite math books ever. From the publisher: “A hilarious reeducation in mathematics-full of joy, jokes, and stick figures-that sheds light on the countless practical and wonderful ways that math structures and shapes our world.”
Still on sale
Code Name Verity is $1.99. Speaking of World War II fiction, this YA novel, according to Kirkus Reviews, is “a carefully researched, precisely written tour de force; unforgettable and wrenching.”
Number the Stars is $2.99. This Newbery award winner chronicles a little known piece of World War II history, in which the Danish resistance rescued 7,000 Jews by sending them to Sweden when word got out about the German plan to round up Jews and relocate them to concentration camps. Reading about the atrocities of World War II can be hard, and this book reminds me of Mr. Rogers saying that when something terrible happens, we should look for the helpers. This book does that, and I always put it on my WW2 reading lists because of that.
Interpreter of Maladies is $2.99. Suzanne said: “This slim but celebrated collection from Indian-American author Lahiri lived up to its reputation for me: I thoroughly enjoyed her melancholy but fascinating stories of culture clash,” and I’m always going to include at least one of Lahiri’s books on any immigration stories reading list.
Truly Devious is $1.99. From our summer 2018 reading list: “Ellingham Academy is one of the most competitive private schools in the country—and also the scene of one of the country’s most notorious unsolved mysteries. New student Stevie Bell is determined to put her true crime obsession to work on Elligham’s famous cold case, but the murderer may not be ancient history after all.” My caveat: This is the first in a series, so if you can’t stand cliffhangers, buy it cheap but wait to read it until the series wraps — this first book has a particularly frustrating cliffhanger ending.
The Lie Tree is $2.81. Even when I don’t especially like Hardinge’s work, I find it so interesting, and this book — about a 19th century English girl who gets caught up in the era’s intellectual battle between evolutionary theory and traditional faith when she sets out to solve the murder of her priest/amateur archaeologist father — is no exception. I had some nits to pick, particularly with the resolution, but this one’s totally worth reading.
Dread Nation is $1.99. Suzanne loved this alternate history novel: “What’s that you say? Ireland has written an alternate history zombie novel, where the dead rise during the Civil War, after the battle of Gettysburg? Where black people, ostensibly freed from slavery, are sent to zombie-fighting schools to protect the white folks from danger? WHY YES I WOULD LIKE TO READ THAT VERY MUCH PLEASE. And I’m happy to report that it does not disappoint. I found this book simultaneously upsetting and hopeful, both in its content and the way it resonates with the current political climate. Another great YA choice (I think this one is officially YA? I don’t understand how these decisions are made) and I’m very excited that it appears to be the start of a series — I WOULD LIKE THE NEXT ONE NOW PLEASE AND THANK YOU.”
The Giver is $2.99. From our middle school reading list: “What cost does utopia have? How important is freedom? Tweens are ready to tackle those ambiguous questions right along with young Jonah in this deceptively simple novel.”
Travels with Charley in Search of America is $1.99. Steinbeck’s travelogue was one of road trip must-reads in the summer 2017 issue of HSL: “Steinbeck spent most of his career writing about the United States as both a setting and a metaphor for his characters’ experiences, so it seems fitting that in his late life, he set off on a three-month trip to revisit his United States and discover it again with his pet poodle Charley as co-pilot.”
Between the World and Me is $2.99. I don’t like to be evangelical about books and shout “everybody should read this!” but I make an exception for this slim tome, which I do think is a must-read in our modern world. And Suzanne agrees: “You’ve read this, right? If not, please do. I was surprised to find that it was such a slim, undersized book—I almost didn’t see it on the shelf. I am not a newcomer to the idea of white privilege (though I don’t claim to be very far down the path as the process of understanding and changing perspective and learning from others is always ongoing) but I was surprised (and embarrassed) by how challenging I found it at times. It was a wonderful, powerful read—go pick it up. I know I’ll be reading it again.”
Ungifted is $1.99. To be honest, I don’t love the trope that smart kids aren’t good at all the stuff outside the classroom — smart people I’ve known are as diverse as any other group — but if that doesn’t bother you, this is a fun and funny book about a middle school troublemaker who accidentally gets sent to a school for the gifted and talented, where he shakes up — well, pretty much everything.
Horton Halfpott : Or, The Fiendish Mystery of Smugwick Manor; or, The Loosening of M'Lady Luggertuck's Corset is $2.99 — and if that title doesn’t make you smile, steer clear, because this middle grades tongue-in-cheek take on Dickens, Upstairs Downstairs, and Gothic lit totally lives up to its slightly ridiculous, utterly delightful name.
Gregor the Overlander is $3.99. This fantasy epic takes place in a world deep beneath the city streets, where cockroaches, rats, and spiders have an uneasy truce with the Underlander humans. When Gregor accidentally plunges into the world, following his little sister, the Underlanders think he may be the hero of their ancient prophesy.
Seveneves is $2.99. This hard sci-fi story is a great follow-up for fans of The Martian. What would happen if the surface of the Earth suddenly became uninhabitable? In Stephenson’s world, scientists band together to create a tiny space colony of chosen survivors, a task that comes with constant technical challenges that need to be scienced if humanity is going to stand a chance of survival. (The first part is stronger than the second, but I always feel that way about Stephenson’s books.)
Atonement is $2.99 — and while the sadness at its heart makes it a hard read if you’re in a dark headspace yourself, I think, it’s a gorgeous novel about the perils and pleasures of writing and the lingering shadow of guilt that can’t be absolved. I’d put it on a World War II reading list since you already know that’s going to be sad but rewarding.
George is $3.99. “While George has no doubt she's a girl, her family relates to her as they always have: as a boy. George hopes that if she can secure the role of Charlotte in her class's upcoming production of Charlotte's Web, her mom will finally see her as a girl and be able to come to terms with the fact that George is transgender. With the help of her closest ally, Kelly, George attempts to get the rest of the world to accept her as she is,” says School Library Journal.
Moxie is $2.99. I adored this book about a girl whose underground zine accidentally starts a feminist revolution at her Texas high school. (It was one of our favorite books of 2017!)
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
The Game of Silence is $1.99. Shelli loves this series about an Ojibwe girl navigating changes during U.S. westward migration: “The book opens with Omakayas standing on the shore of her home, an island in Lake Superior. In the far distance, she sees strange people approaching. Once they arrive, her family finds that these people are Anishinabeg people too. (We call them the Ojibwe or Chippewa people now.) They are haggard, hungry, and some of them have lost members of their family. Among them is a baby boy who has lost his parents, and now he becomes Omakayas’s new baby brother. These people are refugees who have been pushed out of their homes by the chimookomanag, or white people, and as the story unfolds, Omakayas’s family realizes that they, too, must leave their homes.”
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.
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for December 1, 2018
Great WW2 historical fiction and other great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 12/1/18.
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.)
All Creatures Great and Small, All Things Bright and Beautiful, and All Things Wise and Wonderful are available in a three-book volume for $1.99 — which is such a deal! These books were beloved middle school reads for Suzanne’s family; she says, “These are comfort books for me and one of the few series that has been given the universal thumbs-up by everyone who I’ve forced to read them. As a bonus, once the household has had a read-through you can enjoy the 70s-80s BBC series, which stars Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge as Siegfried Farnon and Doctor Who (number five) as Tristan.”
Number the Stars is $2.99. This Newbery award winner chronicles a little known piece of World War II history, in which the Danish resistance rescued 7,000 Jews by sending them to Sweden when word got out about the German plan to round up Jews and relocate them to concentration camps. Reading about the atrocities of World War II can be hard, and this book reminds me of Mr. Rogers saying that when something terrible happens, we should look for the helpers. This book does that, and I always put it on my WW2 reading lists because of that.
Code Name Verity is $1.99. Speaking of World War II fiction, this YA novel, according to Kirkus Reviews, is “a carefully researched, precisely written tour de force; unforgettable and wrenching.”
Still on sale
Interpreter of Maladies is $2.99. Suzanne said: “This slim but celebrated collection from Indian-American author Lahiri lived up to its reputation for me: I thoroughly enjoyed her melancholy but fascinating stories of culture clash,” and I’m always going to include at least one of Lahiri’s books on any immigration stories reading list.
Truly Devious is $1.99. From our summer 2018 reading list: “Ellingham Academy is one of the most competitive private schools in the country—and also the scene of one of the country’s most notorious unsolved mysteries. New student Stevie Bell is determined to put her true crime obsession to work on Elligham’s famous cold case, but the murderer may not be ancient history after all.” My caveat: This is the first in a series, so if you can’t stand cliffhangers, buy it cheap but wait to read it until the series wraps — this first book has a particularly frustrating cliffhanger ending.
The Lie Tree is $2.81. Even when I don’t especially like Hardinge’s work, I find it so interesting, and this book — about a 19th century English girl who gets caught up in the era’s intellectual battle between evolutionary theory and traditional faith when she sets out to solve the murder of her priest/amateur archaeologist father — is no exception. I had some nits to pick, particularly with the resolution, but this one’s totally worth reading.
Dread Nation is $1.99. Suzanne loved this alternate history novel: “What’s that you say? Ireland has written an alternate history zombie novel, where the dead rise during the Civil War, after the battle of Gettysburg? Where black people, ostensibly freed from slavery, are sent to zombie-fighting schools to protect the white folks from danger? WHY YES I WOULD LIKE TO READ THAT VERY MUCH PLEASE. And I’m happy to report that it does not disappoint. I found this book simultaneously upsetting and hopeful, both in its content and the way it resonates with the current political climate. Another great YA choice (I think this one is officially YA? I don’t understand how these decisions are made) and I’m very excited that it appears to be the start of a series — I WOULD LIKE THE NEXT ONE NOW PLEASE AND THANK YOU.”
The Giver is $2.99. From our middle school reading list: “What cost does utopia have? How important is freedom? Tweens are ready to tackle those ambiguous questions right along with young Jonah in this deceptively simple novel.”
Travels with Charley in Search of America is $1.99. Steinbeck’s travelogue was one of road trip must-reads in the summer 2017 issue of HSL: “Steinbeck spent most of his career writing about the United States as both a setting and a metaphor for his characters’ experiences, so it seems fitting that in his late life, he set off on a three-month trip to revisit his United States and discover it again with his pet poodle Charley as co-pilot.”
Between the World and Me is $2.99. I don’t like to be evangelical about books and shout “everybody should read this!” but I make an exception for this slim tome, which I do think is a must-read in our modern world. And Suzanne agrees: “You’ve read this, right? If not, please do. I was surprised to find that it was such a slim, undersized book—I almost didn’t see it on the shelf. I am not a newcomer to the idea of white privilege (though I don’t claim to be very far down the path as the process of understanding and changing perspective and learning from others is always ongoing) but I was surprised (and embarrassed) by how challenging I found it at times. It was a wonderful, powerful read—go pick it up. I know I’ll be reading it again.”
Ungifted is $1.99. To be honest, I don’t love the trope that smart kids aren’t good at all the stuff outside the classroom — smart people I’ve known are as diverse as any other group — but if that doesn’t bother you, this is a fun and funny book about a middle school troublemaker who accidentally gets sent to a school for the gifted and talented, where he shakes up — well, pretty much everything.
Horton Halfpott : Or, The Fiendish Mystery of Smugwick Manor; or, The Loosening of M'Lady Luggertuck's Corset is $2.99 — and if that title doesn’t make you smile, steer clear, because this middle grades tongue-in-cheek take on Dickens, Upstairs Downstairs, and Gothic lit totally lives up to its slightly ridiculous, utterly delightful name.
Gregor the Overlander is $3.99. This fantasy epic takes place in a world deep beneath the city streets, where cockroaches, rats, and spiders have an uneasy truce with the Underlander humans. When Gregor accidentally plunges into the world, following his little sister, the Underlanders think he may be the hero of their ancient prophesy.
Seveneves is $2.99. This hard sci-fi story is a great follow-up for fans of The Martian. What would happen if the surface of the Earth suddenly became uninhabitable? In Stephenson’s world, scientists band together to create a tiny space colony of chosen survivors, a task that comes with constant technical challenges that need to be scienced if humanity is going to stand a chance of survival. (The first part is stronger than the second, but I always feel that way about Stephenson’s books.)
Atonement is $2.99 — and while the sadness at its heart makes it a hard read if you’re in a dark headspace yourself, I think, it’s a gorgeous novel about the perils and pleasures of writing and the lingering shadow of guilt that can’t be absolved. I’d put it on a World War II reading list since you already know that’s going to be sad but rewarding.
George is $3.99. “While George has no doubt she's a girl, her family relates to her as they always have: as a boy. George hopes that if she can secure the role of Charlotte in her class's upcoming production of Charlotte's Web, her mom will finally see her as a girl and be able to come to terms with the fact that George is transgender. With the help of her closest ally, Kelly, George attempts to get the rest of the world to accept her as she is,” says School Library Journal.
Moxie is $2.99. I adored this book about a girl whose underground zine accidentally starts a feminist revolution at her Texas high school. (It was one of our favorite books of 2017!)
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
The Game of Silence is $1.99. Shelli loves this series about an Ojibwe girl navigating changes during U.S. westward migration: “The book opens with Omakayas standing on the shore of her home, an island in Lake Superior. In the far distance, she sees strange people approaching. Once they arrive, her family finds that these people are Anishinabeg people too. (We call them the Ojibwe or Chippewa people now.) They are haggard, hungry, and some of them have lost members of their family. Among them is a baby boy who has lost his parents, and now he becomes Omakayas’s new baby brother. These people are refugees who have been pushed out of their homes by the chimookomanag, or white people, and as the story unfolds, Omakayas’s family realizes that they, too, must leave their homes.”
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.
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for November 30, 2018
Interpreter of Maladies and other great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 11/30/18.
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.)
Interpreter of Maladies is $2.99. Suzanne said: “This slim but celebrated collection from Indian-American author Lahiri lived up to its reputation for me: I thoroughly enjoyed her melancholy but fascinating stories of culture clash,” and I’m always going to include at least one of Lahiri’s books on any immigration stories reading list.
Still on sale
Truly Devious is $1.99. From our summer 2018 reading list: “Ellingham Academy is one of the most competitive private schools in the country—and also the scene of one of the country’s most notorious unsolved mysteries. New student Stevie Bell is determined to put her true crime obsession to work on Elligham’s famous cold case, but the murderer may not be ancient history after all.” My caveat: This is the first in a series, so if you can’t stand cliffhangers, buy it cheap but wait to read it until the series wraps — this first book has a particularly frustrating cliffhanger ending.
The Lie Tree is $2.81. Even when I don’t especially like Hardinge’s work, I find it so interesting, and this book — about a 19th century English girl who gets caught up in the era’s intellectual battle between evolutionary theory and traditional faith when she sets out to solve the murder of her priest/amateur archaeologist father — is no exception. I had some nits to pick, particularly with the resolution, but this one’s totally worth reading.
Flowers for Algernon is $2.99 — and I still remember trying not to cry when we were reading it in my 8th grade lit class. (Pretty sure I wasn’t the only one.) Charlie undergoes an experimental brain surgery designed to increase human intelligence, and it works better than anyone could have expected. Charlie’s IQ leaps from 68 to 185, but being smarter doesn’t make Charlie’s life better. Keyes raises meaningful questions about emotion, intelligence, and science in this novel. (It’s one of our must-reads for middle school.)
Dread Nation is $1.99. Suzanne loved this alternate history novel: “What’s that you say? Ireland has written an alternate history zombie novel, where the dead rise during the Civil War, after the battle of Gettysburg? Where black people, ostensibly freed from slavery, are sent to zombie-fighting schools to protect the white folks from danger? WHY YES I WOULD LIKE TO READ THAT VERY MUCH PLEASE. And I’m happy to report that it does not disappoint. I found this book simultaneously upsetting and hopeful, both in its content and the way it resonates with the current political climate. Another great YA choice (I think this one is officially YA? I don’t understand how these decisions are made) and I’m very excited that it appears to be the start of a series — I WOULD LIKE THE NEXT ONE NOW PLEASE AND THANK YOU.”
Murder on the Orient Express is $2.99. This is one of the classic locked-room mysteries from the golden age of British detective fiction: A man is dead in his compartment on a snow-stalled train, and all twelve of his fellow passengers are the suspects. Luckily, Hercule Poirot is there to sort things out. (Find more of our favorite Agatha Christies here.)
The Giver is $2.99. From our middle school reading list: “What cost does utopia have? How important is freedom? Tweens are ready to tackle those ambiguous questions right along with young Jonah in this deceptively simple novel.”
March: Book One is $3.99. Suzanne put the trilogy this book kicks off on her top nonfiction books read in 2017 list, saying, “It’s a must-read history of the civil rights movement, at a time when we desperately need to remember and learn from the accomplishments of earlier generations.”
How to Read Nature: Awaken Your Senses to the Outdoors You've Never Noticed is $2.99. If you, like me, grew up without a lot of hands-on nature study but really want to make nature study part of your homeschool life, this book makes a great beginner’s guide after you’ve bought all the identification guides but still don’t really know where to start.
The Talented Mr. Ripley is $2.99 — and if you’re looking for something thriller-ish to tide you over the break, this is ideal. Amazon.com’s review says: “One of the great crime novels of the 20th century, Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley is a blend of the narrative subtlety of Henry James and the self-reflexive irony of Vladimir Nabokov. Like the best modernist fiction, Ripley works on two levels. First, it is the story of a young man, Tom Ripley, whose nihilistic tendencies lead him on a deadly passage across Europe. On another level, the novel is a commentary on fictionmaking and techniques of narrative persuasion.” (They neglect to mention that it’s also a ripping good read.)
Travels with Charley in Search of America is $1.99. Steinbeck’s travelogue was one of road trip must-reads in the summer 2017 issue of HSL: “Steinbeck spent most of his career writing about the United States as both a setting and a metaphor for his characters’ experiences, so it seems fitting that in his late life, he set off on a three-month trip to revisit his United States and discover it again with his pet poodle Charley as co-pilot.”
Between the World and Me is $2.99. I don’t like to be evangelical about books and shout “everybody should read this!” but I make an exception for this slim tome, which I do think is a must-read in our modern world. And Suzanne agrees: “You’ve read this, right? If not, please do. I was surprised to find that it was such a slim, undersized book—I almost didn’t see it on the shelf. I am not a newcomer to the idea of white privilege (though I don’t claim to be very far down the path as the process of understanding and changing perspective and learning from others is always ongoing) but I was surprised (and embarrassed) by how challenging I found it at times. It was a wonderful, powerful read—go pick it up. I know I’ll be reading it again.”
Ungifted is $1.99. To be honest, I don’t love the trope that smart kids aren’t good at all the stuff outside the classroom — smart people I’ve known are as diverse as any other group — but if that doesn’t bother you, this is a fun and funny book about a middle school troublemaker who accidentally gets sent to a school for the gifted and talented, where he shakes up — well, pretty much everything.
Horton Halfpott : Or, The Fiendish Mystery of Smugwick Manor; or, The Loosening of M'Lady Luggertuck's Corset is $2.99 — and if that title doesn’t make you smile, steer clear, because this middle grades tongue-in-cheek take on Dickens, Upstairs Downstairs, and Gothic lit totally lives up to its slightly ridiculous, utterly delightful name.
The Magicians is $1.99. For teenagers (I definitely wouldn’t hand this to younger readers) looking for something to read after growing up on Harry Potter and the Chronicles and Narnia, this dark, subversive take on wizards in the modern world is pretty much perfect.
Gregor the Overlander is $3.99. This fantasy epic takes place in a world deep beneath the city streets, where cockroaches, rats, and spiders have an uneasy truce with the Underlander humans. When Gregor accidentally plunges into the world, following his little sister, the Underlanders think he may be the hero of their ancient prophesy.
Seveneves is $2.99. This hard sci-fi story is a great follow-up for fans of The Martian. What would happen if the surface of the Earth suddenly became uninhabitable? In Stephenson’s world, scientists band together to create a tiny space colony of chosen survivors, a task that comes with constant technical challenges that need to be scienced if humanity is going to stand a chance of survival. (The first part is stronger than the second, but I always feel that way about Stephenson’s books.)
Atonement is $2.99 — and while the sadness at its heart makes it a hard read if you’re in a dark headspace yourself, I think, it’s a gorgeous novel about the perils and pleasures of writing and the lingering shadow of guilt that can’t be absolved. I’d put it on a World War II reading list since you already know that’s going to be sad but rewarding.
George is $3.99. “While George has no doubt she's a girl, her family relates to her as they always have: as a boy. George hopes that if she can secure the role of Charlotte in her class's upcoming production of Charlotte's Web, her mom will finally see her as a girl and be able to come to terms with the fact that George is transgender. With the help of her closest ally, Kelly, George attempts to get the rest of the world to accept her as she is,” says School Library Journal.
Corsets and Codpieces: A History of Outrageous Fashion, from Roman Times to the Modern Era is $1.99. If you’re studying European history with a fashion enthusiast, you’ll want to have this book, which is an often funny and always fascinating review of fashion from the middle ages to Christian Dior.
Moxie is $2.99. I adored this book about a girl whose underground zine accidentally starts a feminist revolution at her Texas high school. (It was one of our favorite books of 2017!)
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
Paper Girls (Vol. 1) is $2.99. Suzanne is such a fan of this graphic novel that it made her best of 2017 list: “For older YA readers (and fans of Stranger Things), Paper Girls is a fantastic time-traveling alien-invasion adventure set in the 80s.”
The Game of Silence is $1.99. Shelli loves this series about an Ojibwe girl navigating changes during U.S. westward migration: “The book opens with Omakayas standing on the shore of her home, an island in Lake Superior. In the far distance, she sees strange people approaching. Once they arrive, her family finds that these people are Anishinabeg people too. (We call them the Ojibwe or Chippewa people now.) They are haggard, hungry, and some of them have lost members of their family. Among them is a baby boy who has lost his parents, and now he becomes Omakayas’s new baby brother. These people are refugees who have been pushed out of their homes by the chimookomanag, or white people, and as the story unfolds, Omakayas’s family realizes that they, too, must leave their homes.”
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.
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for November 29, 2018
Truly Devious, The Lie Tree and other great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 11/29/18.
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 Lie Tree is $2.85. Even when I don’t especially like Hardinge’s work, I find it so interesting, and this book — about a 19th century English girl who gets caught up in the era’s intellectual battle between evolutionary theory and traditional faith when she sets out to solve the murder of her priest/amateur archaeologist father — is no exception. I had some nits to pick, particularly with the resolution, but this one’s totally worth reading.
Truly Devious is $1.99. From our summer 2018 reading list: “Ellingham Academy is one of the most competitive private schools in the country—and also the scene of one of the country’s most notorious unsolved mysteries. New student Stevie Bell is determined to put her true crime obsession to work on Elligham’s famous cold case, but the murderer may not be ancient history after all.” My caveat: This is the first in a series, so if you can’t stand cliffhangers, buy it cheap but wait to read it until the series wraps — this first book has a particularly frustrating cliffhanger ending.
Still on sale
Flowers for Algernon is $2.99 — and I still remember trying not to cry when we were reading it in my 8th grade lit class. (Pretty sure I wasn’t the only one.) Charlie undergoes an experimental brain surgery designed to increase human intelligence, and it works better than anyone could have expected. Charlie’s IQ leaps from 68 to 185, but being smarter doesn’t make Charlie’s life better. Keyes raises meaningful questions about emotion, intelligence, and science in this novel. (It’s one of our must-reads for middle school.)
Dread Nation is $1.99. Suzanne loved this alternate history novel: “What’s that you say? Ireland has written an alternate history zombie novel, where the dead rise during the Civil War, after the battle of Gettysburg? Where black people, ostensibly freed from slavery, are sent to zombie-fighting schools to protect the white folks from danger? WHY YES I WOULD LIKE TO READ THAT VERY MUCH PLEASE. And I’m happy to report that it does not disappoint. I found this book simultaneously upsetting and hopeful, both in its content and the way it resonates with the current political climate. Another great YA choice (I think this one is officially YA? I don’t understand how these decisions are made) and I’m very excited that it appears to be the start of a series — I WOULD LIKE THE NEXT ONE NOW PLEASE AND THANK YOU.”
Murder on the Orient Express is $2.99. This is one of the classic locked-room mysteries from the golden age of British detective fiction: A man is dead in his compartment on a snow-stalled train, and all twelve of his fellow passengers are the suspects. Luckily, Hercule Poirot is there to sort things out. (Find more of our favorite Agatha Christies here.)
The Giver is $2.99. From our middle school reading list: “What cost does utopia have? How important is freedom? Tweens are ready to tackle those ambiguous questions right along with young Jonah in this deceptively simple novel.”
March: Book One is $3.99. Suzanne put the trilogy this book kicks off on her top nonfiction books read in 2017 list, saying, “It’s a must-read history of the civil rights movement, at a time when we desperately need to remember and learn from the accomplishments of earlier generations.”
How to Read Nature: Awaken Your Senses to the Outdoors You've Never Noticed is $2.99. If you, like me, grew up without a lot of hands-on nature study but really want to make nature study part of your homeschool life, this book makes a great beginner’s guide after you’ve bought all the identification guides but still don’t really know where to start.
The Talented Mr. Ripley is $2.99 — and if you’re looking for something thriller-ish to tide you over the break, this is ideal. Amazon.com’s review says: “One of the great crime novels of the 20th century, Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley is a blend of the narrative subtlety of Henry James and the self-reflexive irony of Vladimir Nabokov. Like the best modernist fiction, Ripley works on two levels. First, it is the story of a young man, Tom Ripley, whose nihilistic tendencies lead him on a deadly passage across Europe. On another level, the novel is a commentary on fictionmaking and techniques of narrative persuasion.” (They neglect to mention that it’s also a ripping good read.)
Travels with Charley in Search of America is $1.99. Steinbeck’s travelogue was one of road trip must-reads in the summer 2017 issue of HSL: “Steinbeck spent most of his career writing about the United States as both a setting and a metaphor for his characters’ experiences, so it seems fitting that in his late life, he set off on a three-month trip to revisit his United States and discover it again with his pet poodle Charley as co-pilot.”
Between the World and Me is $2.99. I don’t like to be evangelical about books and shout “everybody should read this!” but I make an exception for this slim tome, which I do think is a must-read in our modern world. And Suzanne agrees: “You’ve read this, right? If not, please do. I was surprised to find that it was such a slim, undersized book—I almost didn’t see it on the shelf. I am not a newcomer to the idea of white privilege (though I don’t claim to be very far down the path as the process of understanding and changing perspective and learning from others is always ongoing) but I was surprised (and embarrassed) by how challenging I found it at times. It was a wonderful, powerful read—go pick it up. I know I’ll be reading it again.”
Ungifted is $1.99. To be honest, I don’t love the trope that smart kids aren’t good at all the stuff outside the classroom — smart people I’ve known are as diverse as any other group — but if that doesn’t bother you, this is a fun and funny book about a middle school troublemaker who accidentally gets sent to a school for the gifted and talented, where he shakes up — well, pretty much everything.
Horton Halfpott : Or, The Fiendish Mystery of Smugwick Manor; or, The Loosening of M'Lady Luggertuck's Corset is $2.99 — and if that title doesn’t make you smile, steer clear, because this middle grades tongue-in-cheek take on Dickens, Upstairs Downstairs, and Gothic lit totally lives up to its slightly ridiculous, utterly delightful name.
The Magicians is $1.99. For teenagers (I definitely wouldn’t hand this to younger readers) looking for something to read after growing up on Harry Potter and the Chronicles and Narnia, this dark, subversive take on wizards in the modern world is pretty much perfect.
Gregor the Overlander is $3.99. This fantasy epic takes place in a world deep beneath the city streets, where cockroaches, rats, and spiders have an uneasy truce with the Underlander humans. When Gregor accidentally plunges into the world, following his little sister, the Underlanders think he may be the hero of their ancient prophesy.
Seveneves is $2.99. This hard sci-fi story is a great follow-up for fans of The Martian. What would happen if the surface of the Earth suddenly became uninhabitable? In Stephenson’s world, scientists band together to create a tiny space colony of chosen survivors, a task that comes with constant technical challenges that need to be scienced if humanity is going to stand a chance of survival. (The first part is stronger than the second, but I always feel that way about Stephenson’s books.)
Atonement is $2.99 — and while the sadness at its heart makes it a hard read if you’re in a dark headspace yourself, I think, it’s a gorgeous novel about the perils and pleasures of writing and the lingering shadow of guilt that can’t be absolved. I’d put it on a World War II reading list since you already know that’s going to be sad but rewarding.
George is $3.99. “While George has no doubt she's a girl, her family relates to her as they always have: as a boy. George hopes that if she can secure the role of Charlotte in her class's upcoming production of Charlotte's Web, her mom will finally see her as a girl and be able to come to terms with the fact that George is transgender. With the help of her closest ally, Kelly, George attempts to get the rest of the world to accept her as she is,” says School Library Journal.
Corsets and Codpieces: A History of Outrageous Fashion, from Roman Times to the Modern Era is $1.99. If you’re studying European history with a fashion enthusiast, you’ll want to have this book, which is an often funny and always fascinating review of fashion from the middle ages to Christian Dior.
Moxie is $2.99. I adored this book about a girl whose underground zine accidentally starts a feminist revolution at her Texas high school. (It was one of our favorite books of 2017!)
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
Paper Girls (Vol. 1) is $2.99. Suzanne is such a fan of this graphic novel that it made her best of 2017 list: “For older YA readers (and fans of Stranger Things), Paper Girls is a fantastic time-traveling alien-invasion adventure set in the 80s.”
The Game of Silence is $1.99. Shelli loves this series about an Ojibwe girl navigating changes during U.S. westward migration: “The book opens with Omakayas standing on the shore of her home, an island in Lake Superior. In the far distance, she sees strange people approaching. Once they arrive, her family finds that these people are Anishinabeg people too. (We call them the Ojibwe or Chippewa people now.) They are haggard, hungry, and some of them have lost members of their family. Among them is a baby boy who has lost his parents, and now he becomes Omakayas’s new baby brother. These people are refugees who have been pushed out of their homes by the chimookomanag, or white people, and as the story unfolds, Omakayas’s family realizes that they, too, must leave their homes.”
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.
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for November 28, 2018
Flowers for Algernon, Dread Nation, and other great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 11/28/18.
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.)
Flowers for Algernon is $2.99 — and I still remember trying not to cry when we were reading it in my 8th grade lit class. (Pretty sure I wasn’t the only one.) Charlie undergoes an experimental brain surgery designed to increase human intelligence, and it works better than anyone could have expected. Charlie’s IQ leaps from 68 to 185, but being smarter doesn’t make Charlie’s life better. Keyes raises meaningful questions about emotion, intelligence, and science in this novel. (It’s one of our must-reads for middle school.)
Dread Nation is $1.99. Suzanne loved this alternate history novel: “What’s that you say? Ireland has written an alternate history zombie novel, where the dead rise during the Civil War, after the battle of Gettysburg? Where black people, ostensibly freed from slavery, are sent to zombie-fighting schools to protect the white folks from danger? WHY YES I WOULD LIKE TO READ THAT VERY MUCH PLEASE. And I’m happy to report that it does not disappoint. I found this book simultaneously upsetting and hopeful, both in its content and the way it resonates with the current political climate. Another great YA choice (I think this one is officially YA? I don’t understand how these decisions are made) and I’m very excited that it appears to be the start of a series — I WOULD LIKE THE NEXT ONE NOW PLEASE AND THANK YOU.”
Still on sale
Murder on the Orient Express is $2.99. This is one of the classic locked-room mysteries from the golden age of British detective fiction: A man is dead in his compartment on a snow-stalled train, and all twelve of his fellow passengers are the suspects. Luckily, Hercule Poirot is there to sort things out. (Find more of our favorite Agatha Christies here.)
The Giver is $2.99. From our middle school reading list: “What cost does utopia have? How important is freedom? Tweens are ready to tackle those ambiguous questions right along with young Jonah in this deceptively simple novel.”
March: Book One is $3.99. Suzanne put the trilogy this book kicks off on her top nonfiction books read in 2017 list, saying, “It’s a must-read history of the civil rights movement, at a time when we desperately need to remember and learn from the accomplishments of earlier generations.”
How to Read Nature: Awaken Your Senses to the Outdoors You've Never Noticed is $2.99. If you, like me, grew up without a lot of hands-on nature study but really want to make nature study part of your homeschool life, this book makes a great beginner’s guide after you’ve bought all the identification guides but still don’t really know where to start.
The Talented Mr. Ripley is $2.99 — and if you’re looking for something thriller-ish to tide you over the break, this is ideal. Amazon.com’s review says: “One of the great crime novels of the 20th century, Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley is a blend of the narrative subtlety of Henry James and the self-reflexive irony of Vladimir Nabokov. Like the best modernist fiction, Ripley works on two levels. First, it is the story of a young man, Tom Ripley, whose nihilistic tendencies lead him on a deadly passage across Europe. On another level, the novel is a commentary on fictionmaking and techniques of narrative persuasion.” (They neglect to mention that it’s also a ripping good read.)
Travels with Charley in Search of America is $1.99. Steinbeck’s travelogue was one of road trip must-reads in the summer 2017 issue of HSL: “Steinbeck spent most of his career writing about the United States as both a setting and a metaphor for his characters’ experiences, so it seems fitting that in his late life, he set off on a three-month trip to revisit his United States and discover it again with his pet poodle Charley as co-pilot.”
Between the World and Me is $2.99. I don’t like to be evangelical about books and shout “everybody should read this!” but I make an exception for this slim tome, which I do think is a must-read in our modern world. And Suzanne agrees: “You’ve read this, right? If not, please do. I was surprised to find that it was such a slim, undersized book—I almost didn’t see it on the shelf. I am not a newcomer to the idea of white privilege (though I don’t claim to be very far down the path as the process of understanding and changing perspective and learning from others is always ongoing) but I was surprised (and embarrassed) by how challenging I found it at times. It was a wonderful, powerful read—go pick it up. I know I’ll be reading it again.”
Ungifted is $1.99. To be honest, I don’t love the trope that smart kids aren’t good at all the stuff outside the classroom — smart people I’ve known are as diverse as any other group — but if that doesn’t bother you, this is a fun and funny book about a middle school troublemaker who accidentally gets sent to a school for the gifted and talented, where he shakes up — well, pretty much everything.
Horton Halfpott : Or, The Fiendish Mystery of Smugwick Manor; or, The Loosening of M'Lady Luggertuck's Corset is $2.99 — and if that title doesn’t make you smile, steer clear, because this middle grades tongue-in-cheek take on Dickens, Upstairs Downstairs, and Gothic lit totally lives up to its slightly ridiculous, utterly delightful name.
The Magicians is $1.99. For teenagers (I definitely wouldn’t hand this to younger readers) looking for something to read after growing up on Harry Potter and the Chronicles and Narnia, this dark, subversive take on wizards in the modern world is pretty much perfect.
Gregor the Overlander is $3.99. This fantasy epic takes place in a world deep beneath the city streets, where cockroaches, rats, and spiders have an uneasy truce with the Underlander humans. When Gregor accidentally plunges into the world, following his little sister, the Underlanders think he may be the hero of their ancient prophesy.
Seveneves is $2.99. This hard sci-fi story is a great follow-up for fans of The Martian. What would happen if the surface of the Earth suddenly became uninhabitable? In Stephenson’s world, scientists band together to create a tiny space colony of chosen survivors, a task that comes with constant technical challenges that need to be scienced if humanity is going to stand a chance of survival. (The first part is stronger than the second, but I always feel that way about Stephenson’s books.)
Atonement is $2.99 — and while the sadness at its heart makes it a hard read if you’re in a dark headspace yourself, I think, it’s a gorgeous novel about the perils and pleasures of writing and the lingering shadow of guilt that can’t be absolved. I’d put it on a World War II reading list since you already know that’s going to be sad but rewarding.
George is $3.99. “While George has no doubt she's a girl, her family relates to her as they always have: as a boy. George hopes that if she can secure the role of Charlotte in her class's upcoming production of Charlotte's Web, her mom will finally see her as a girl and be able to come to terms with the fact that George is transgender. With the help of her closest ally, Kelly, George attempts to get the rest of the world to accept her as she is,” says School Library Journal.
Corsets and Codpieces: A History of Outrageous Fashion, from Roman Times to the Modern Era is $1.99. If you’re studying European history with a fashion enthusiast, you’ll want to have this book, which is an often funny and always fascinating review of fashion from the middle ages to Christian Dior.
Moxie is $2.99. I adored this book about a girl whose underground zine accidentally starts a feminist revolution at her Texas high school. (It was one of our favorite books of 2017!)
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
Paper Girls (Vol. 1) is $2.99. Suzanne is such a fan of this graphic novel that it made her best of 2017 list: “For older YA readers (and fans of Stranger Things), Paper Girls is a fantastic time-traveling alien-invasion adventure set in the 80s.”
The Game of Silence is $1.99. Shelli loves this series about an Ojibwe girl navigating changes during U.S. westward migration: “The book opens with Omakayas standing on the shore of her home, an island in Lake Superior. In the far distance, she sees strange people approaching. Once they arrive, her family finds that these people are Anishinabeg people too. (We call them the Ojibwe or Chippewa people now.) They are haggard, hungry, and some of them have lost members of their family. Among them is a baby boy who has lost his parents, and now he becomes Omakayas’s new baby brother. These people are refugees who have been pushed out of their homes by the chimookomanag, or white people, and as the story unfolds, Omakayas’s family realizes that they, too, must leave their homes.”
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.
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for November 27, 2018
The Giver, Murder on the Orient Express, and other great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 11/27/18.
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.)
My book — The A+ Homeschool Planner — is one sale for $12.37 right now. (It’s usually $16.99.) It’s undated, so if you want to snag a copy, this seems like a good time. It’s only available in print, so this doesn’t count as a Kindle book deal! (The ways of Amazon book sales are mysterious, so I don’t know why it’s on sale or how long it will last.)
The Giver is $2.99. From our middle school reading list: “What cost does utopia have? How important is freedom? Tweens are ready to tackle those ambiguous questions right along with young Jonah in this deceptively simple novel.”
The Six Wives of Henry VIII is $1.99. I credit this book with launching my Tudors obsession: Weir does a brilliant job capturing the personalities, politics, and scandals of Henry VIII’s court while making each of his wives a fully developed character in her own right.
Murder on the Orient Express is $2.99. This is one of the classic locked-room mysteries from the golden age of British detective fiction: A man is dead in his compartment on a snow-stalled train, and all twelve of his fellow passengers are the suspects. Luckily, Hercule Poirot is there to sort things out.
Still on sale
Children of Blood and Bone is $2.99. From our 2018 winter reading list: “This YA book is a fantastic fantasy about two girls who want to bring magic back to their land and a crown prince who would do anything to stop them, but it’s also about racism, prejudice, and xenophobia. This is probably the book everyone will be talking about.”
The Handmaid’s Tale is $2.99. From our books you should read in high school list: “What’s terrifying about Atwood’s dystopian future, in which a totalitarian religious regime controls women’s lives completely, is how believable it is.”
March: Book One is $3.99. Suzanne put the trilogy this book kicks off on her top nonfiction books read in 2017 list, saying, “It’s a must-read history of the civil rights movement, at a time when we desperately need to remember and learn from the accomplishments of earlier generations.”
How to Read Nature: Awaken Your Senses to the Outdoors You've Never Noticed is $2.99. If you, like me, grew up without a lot of hands-on nature study but really want to make nature study part of your homeschool life, this book makes a great beginner’s guide after you’ve bought all the identification guides but still don’t really know where to start.
The Talented Mr. Ripley is $2.99 — and if you’re looking for something thriller-ish to tide you over the break, this is ideal. Amazon.com’s review says: “One of the great crime novels of the 20th century, Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley is a blend of the narrative subtlety of Henry James and the self-reflexive irony of Vladimir Nabokov. Like the best modernist fiction, Ripley works on two levels. First, it is the story of a young man, Tom Ripley, whose nihilistic tendencies lead him on a deadly passage across Europe. On another level, the novel is a commentary on fictionmaking and techniques of narrative persuasion.” (They neglect to mention that it’s also a ripping good read.)
Travels with Charley in Search of America is $1.99. Steinbeck’s travelogue was one of road trip must-reads in the summer 2017 issue of HSL: “Steinbeck spent most of his career writing about the United States as both a setting and a metaphor for his characters’ experiences, so it seems fitting that in his late life, he set off on a three-month trip to revisit his United States and discover it again with his pet poodle Charley as co-pilot.”
Between the World and Me is $2.99. I don’t like to be evangelical about books and shout “everybody should read this!” but I make an exception for this slim tome, which I do think is a must-read in our modern world. And Suzanne agrees: “You’ve read this, right? If not, please do. I was surprised to find that it was such a slim, undersized book—I almost didn’t see it on the shelf. I am not a newcomer to the idea of white privilege (though I don’t claim to be very far down the path as the process of understanding and changing perspective and learning from others is always ongoing) but I was surprised (and embarrassed) by how challenging I found it at times. It was a wonderful, powerful read—go pick it up. I know I’ll be reading it again.”
Ungifted is $1.99. To be honest, I don’t love the trope that smart kids aren’t good at all the stuff outside the classroom — smart people I’ve known are as diverse as any other group — but if that doesn’t bother you, this is a fun and funny book about a middle school troublemaker who accidentally gets sent to a school for the gifted and talented, where he shakes up — well, pretty much everything.
Horton Halfpott : Or, The Fiendish Mystery of Smugwick Manor; or, The Loosening of M'Lady Luggertuck's Corset is $2.99 — and if that title doesn’t make you smile, steer clear, because this middle grades tongue-in-cheek take on Dickens, Upstairs Downstairs, and Gothic lit totally lives up to its slightly ridiculous, utterly delightful name.
The Age of Miracles is $1.99. Suzanne says, “Adolescent Julia and her family struggle to deal with massive changes as the rotation of the Earth inexplicably slows. While I struggled a bit with the science (or the massive lack of it) in this particular apocalyptic scenario, that’s not really the point. Instead, as Buffy the Vampire Slayer used a Hellmouth to point out the challenges of high school and teenagerhood, Walker uses the possible end of the world as a backdrop for this coming of age tale, where Julia wonders if she’ll even survive the dramatic changes, both personal and global, taking place in her world. (This is one of the only novels on the list that I’d be okay handing to a middle schooler.)”
The Magicians is $1.99. For teenagers (I definitely wouldn’t hand this to younger readers) looking for something to read after growing up on Harry Potter and the Chronicles and Narnia, this dark, subversive take on wizards in the modern world is pretty much perfect.
Gregor the Overlander is $3.99. This fantasy epic takes place in a world deep beneath the city streets, where cockroaches, rats, and spiders have an uneasy truce with the Underlander humans. When Gregor accidentally plunges into the world, following his little sister, the Underlanders think he may be the hero of their ancient prophesy.
Seveneves is $2.99. This hard sci-fi story is a great follow-up for fans of The Martian. What would happen if the surface of the Earth suddenly became uninhabitable? In Stephenson’s world, scientists band together to create a tiny space colony of chosen survivors, a task that comes with constant technical challenges that need to be scienced if humanity is going to stand a chance of survival. (The first part is stronger than the second, but I always feel that way about Stephenson’s books.)
Atonement is $2.99 — and while the sadness at its heart makes it a hard read if you’re in a dark headspace yourself, I think, it’s a gorgeous novel about the perils and pleasures of writing and the lingering shadow of guilt that can’t be absolved. I’d put it on a World War II reading list since you already know that’s going to be sad but rewarding.
George is $3.99. “While George has no doubt she's a girl, her family relates to her as they always have: as a boy. George hopes that if she can secure the role of Charlotte in her class's upcoming production of Charlotte's Web, her mom will finally see her as a girl and be able to come to terms with the fact that George is transgender. With the help of her closest ally, Kelly, George attempts to get the rest of the world to accept her as she is,” says School Library Journal.
Corsets and Codpieces: A History of Outrageous Fashion, from Roman Times to the Modern Era is $1.99. If you’re studying European history with a fashion enthusiast, you’ll want to have this book, which is an often funny and always fascinating review of fashion from the middle ages to Christian Dior.
Moxie is $2.99. I adored this book about a girl whose underground zine accidentally starts a feminist revolution at her Texas high school. (It was one of our favorite books of 2017!)
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
Paper Girls (Vol. 1) is $2.99. Suzanne is such a fan of this graphic novel that it made her best of 2017 list: “For older YA readers (and fans of Stranger Things), Paper Girls is a fantastic time-traveling alien-invasion adventure set in the 80s.”
The Game of Silence is $1.99. Shelli loves this series about an Ojibwe girl navigating changes during U.S. westward migration: “The book opens with Omakayas standing on the shore of her home, an island in Lake Superior. In the far distance, she sees strange people approaching. Once they arrive, her family finds that these people are Anishinabeg people too. (We call them the Ojibwe or Chippewa people now.) They are haggard, hungry, and some of them have lost members of their family. Among them is a baby boy who has lost his parents, and now he becomes Omakayas’s new baby brother. These people are refugees who have been pushed out of their homes by the chimookomanag, or white people, and as the story unfolds, Omakayas’s family realizes that they, too, must leave their homes.”
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.
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for November 26, 2018
The Handmaid’s Tale and other great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 11/26/18.
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.)
My book — The A+ Homeschool Planner — is one sale for $12.37 right now. (It’s usually $16.99.) It’s undated, so if you want to snag a copy, this seems like a good time. It’s only available in print, so this doesn’t count as a Kindle book deal! (The ways of Amazon book sales are mysterious, so I don’t know why it’s on sale or how long it will last.)
The Handmaid’s Tale is $2.99. From our books you should read in high school list: “What’s terrifying about Atwood’s dystopian future, in which a totalitarian religious regime controls women’s lives completely, is how believable it is.”
Children of Blood and Bone is $2.99. From our 2018 winter reading list: “This YA book is a fantastic fantasy about two girls who want to bring magic back to their land and a crown prince who would do anything to stop them, but it’s also about racism, prejudice, and xenophobia. This is probably the book everyone will be talking about.”
The Three-Body Problem is $2.99. President Barack Obama liked this hard science-fiction book (the first in a trilogy), but just as importantly, Suzanne found it a delightful throwback to the sci-fi she loved as a kid.
Still on sale
March: Book One is $3.99. Suzanne put the trilogy this book kicks off on her top nonfiction books read in 2017 list, saying, “It’s a must-read history of the civil rights movement, at a time when we desperately need to remember and learn from the accomplishments of earlier generations.”
How to Read Nature: Awaken Your Senses to the Outdoors You've Never Noticed is $2.99. If you, like me, grew up without a lot of hands-on nature study but really want to make nature study part of your homeschool life, this book makes a great beginner’s guide after you’ve bought all the identification guides but still don’t really know where to start.
The Talented Mr. Ripley is $2.99 — and if you’re looking for something thriller-ish to tide you over the break, this is ideal. Amazon.com’s review says: “One of the great crime novels of the 20th century, Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley is a blend of the narrative subtlety of Henry James and the self-reflexive irony of Vladimir Nabokov. Like the best modernist fiction, Ripley works on two levels. First, it is the story of a young man, Tom Ripley, whose nihilistic tendencies lead him on a deadly passage across Europe. On another level, the novel is a commentary on fictionmaking and techniques of narrative persuasion.” (They neglect to mention that it’s also a ripping good read.)
Travels with Charley in Search of America is $1.99. Steinbeck’s travelogue was one of road trip must-reads in the summer 2017 issue of HSL: “Steinbeck spent most of his career writing about the United States as both a setting and a metaphor for his characters’ experiences, so it seems fitting that in his late life, he set off on a three-month trip to revisit his United States and discover it again with his pet poodle Charley as co-pilot.”
Between the World and Me is $2.99. I don’t like to be evangelical about books and shout “everybody should read this!” but I make an exception for this slim tome, which I do think is a must-read in our modern world. And Suzanne agrees: “You’ve read this, right? If not, please do. I was surprised to find that it was such a slim, undersized book—I almost didn’t see it on the shelf. I am not a newcomer to the idea of white privilege (though I don’t claim to be very far down the path as the process of understanding and changing perspective and learning from others is always ongoing) but I was surprised (and embarrassed) by how challenging I found it at times. It was a wonderful, powerful read—go pick it up. I know I’ll be reading it again.”
Ungifted is $1.99. To be honest, I don’t love the trope that smart kids aren’t good at all the stuff outside the classroom — smart people I’ve known are as diverse as any other group — but if that doesn’t bother you, this is a fun and funny book about a middle school troublemaker who accidentally gets sent to a school for the gifted and talented, where he shakes up — well, pretty much everything.
Horton Halfpott : Or, The Fiendish Mystery of Smugwick Manor; or, The Loosening of M'Lady Luggertuck's Corset is $2.99 — and if that title doesn’t make you smile, steer clear, because this middle grades tongue-in-cheek take on Dickens, Upstairs Downstairs, and Gothic lit totally lives up to its slightly ridiculous, utterly delightful name.
The Age of Miracles is $1.99. Suzanne says, “Adolescent Julia and her family struggle to deal with massive changes as the rotation of the Earth inexplicably slows. While I struggled a bit with the science (or the massive lack of it) in this particular apocalyptic scenario, that’s not really the point. Instead, as Buffy the Vampire Slayer used a Hellmouth to point out the challenges of high school and teenagerhood, Walker uses the possible end of the world as a backdrop for this coming of age tale, where Julia wonders if she’ll even survive the dramatic changes, both personal and global, taking place in her world. (This is one of the only novels on the list that I’d be okay handing to a middle schooler.)”
The Magicians is $1.99. For teenagers (I definitely wouldn’t hand this to younger readers) looking for something to read after growing up on Harry Potter and the Chronicles and Narnia, this dark, subversive take on wizards in the modern world is pretty much perfect.
Gregor the Overlander is $3.99. This fantasy epic takes place in a world deep beneath the city streets, where cockroaches, rats, and spiders have an uneasy truce with the Underlander humans. When Gregor accidentally plunges into the world, following his little sister, the Underlanders think he may be the hero of their ancient prophesy.
Seveneves is $2.99. This hard sci-fi story is a great follow-up for fans of The Martian. What would happen if the surface of the Earth suddenly became uninhabitable? In Stephenson’s world, scientists band together to create a tiny space colony of chosen survivors, a task that comes with constant technical challenges that need to be scienced if humanity is going to stand a chance of survival. (The first part is stronger than the second, but I always feel that way about Stephenson’s books.)
Atonement is $2.99 — and while the sadness at its heart makes it a hard read if you’re in a dark headspace yourself, I think, it’s a gorgeous novel about the perils and pleasures of writing and the lingering shadow of guilt that can’t be absolved. I’d put it on a World War II reading list since you already know that’s going to be sad but rewarding.
George is $3.99. “While George has no doubt she's a girl, her family relates to her as they always have: as a boy. George hopes that if she can secure the role of Charlotte in her class's upcoming production of Charlotte's Web, her mom will finally see her as a girl and be able to come to terms with the fact that George is transgender. With the help of her closest ally, Kelly, George attempts to get the rest of the world to accept her as she is,” says School Library Journal.
Corsets and Codpieces: A History of Outrageous Fashion, from Roman Times to the Modern Era is $1.99. If you’re studying European history with a fashion enthusiast, you’ll want to have this book, which is an often funny and always fascinating review of fashion from the middle ages to Christian Dior.
Moxie is $2.99. I adored this book about a girl whose underground zine accidentally starts a feminist revolution at her Texas high school. (It was one of our favorite books of 2017!)
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
Paper Girls (Vol. 1) is $2.99. Suzanne is such a fan of this graphic novel that it made her best of 2017 list: “For older YA readers (and fans of Stranger Things), Paper Girls is a fantastic time-traveling alien-invasion adventure set in the 80s.”
The Game of Silence is $1.99. Shelli loves this series about an Ojibwe girl navigating changes during U.S. westward migration: “The book opens with Omakayas standing on the shore of her home, an island in Lake Superior. In the far distance, she sees strange people approaching. Once they arrive, her family finds that these people are Anishinabeg people too. (We call them the Ojibwe or Chippewa people now.) They are haggard, hungry, and some of them have lost members of their family. Among them is a baby boy who has lost his parents, and now he becomes Omakayas’s new baby brother. These people are refugees who have been pushed out of their homes by the chimookomanag, or white people, and as the story unfolds, Omakayas’s family realizes that they, too, must leave their homes.”
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.
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for November 24, 2018
John Lewis’s March: Book One and other great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 11/24/18.
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.)
My book — The A+ Homeschool Planner — is one sale for $12.37 right now. (It’s usually $16.99.) It’s undated, so if you want to snag a copy, this seems like a good time. It’s only available in print, so this doesn’t count as a Kindle book deal! (The ways of Amazon book sales are mysterious, so I don’t know why it’s on sale or how long it will last.)
March: Book One is $3.99. Suzanne put the trilogy this book kicks off on her top nonfiction books read in 2017 list, saying, “It’s a must-read history of the civil rights movement, at a time when we desperately need to remember and learn from the accomplishments of earlier generations.”
Still on sale
The Girl Who Drank the Moon is $1.99. I love this book. If you haven’t read it, you should snap it up right now and put it at the top of your readaloud list. From my review: “I thought this little middle grades fantasy was just lovely—a worthy precursor to authors like Gaiman and LeGuin. Barnhill has a knack for telling a complex story in deceptively simple, lyrical fairy tale language, and the way she teases the individual threads of this story together—the brave boy, the magical girl, the witch’s forgotten history, the mad mother—is brilliant. The characters—minor and major—live and breathe; the world of the story feels sturdy enough to stand on its own.”
Origin Story: A Big History of Everything is $4.99. If big history is your thing — and how can it not be your thing, at least sometimes? — this book is a great, scientific history of the world that cover the almost 14 billion years of Earth’s history through major events and trends. Merry Wiesner-Hanks, the President of the World History Association, called it “a remarkable book that puts us self-important humans in our proper place in the cosmos, yet also explains why the story of human culture and knowledge — what Christian calls collective learning — matters for understanding our present world and shaping its future." The author (unsurprisingly) is cofounder of the Big History Project, which a lot of homeschoolers love.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is $1.99. From our high school Native American history reading list: “Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is at the top of our essential reading list for good reason: Brown’s incisive, authoritative account of the systematic 19th century destruction of Native American populations by the United States illuminates the perspective of the Dakota, Ute, Sioux, Cheyenne, and other tribes who lived through it. This is not an easy book to read, but it’s an important one.”
How to Read Nature: Awaken Your Senses to the Outdoors You've Never Noticed is $2.99. If you, like me, grew up without a lot of hands-on nature study but really want to make nature study part of your homeschool life, this book makes a great beginner’s guide after you’ve bought all the identification guides but still don’t really know where to start.
The Talented Mr. Ripley is $2.99 — and if you’re looking for something thriller-ish to tide you over the break, this is ideal. Amazon.com’s review says: “One of the great crime novels of the 20th century, Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley is a blend of the narrative subtlety of Henry James and the self-reflexive irony of Vladimir Nabokov. Like the best modernist fiction, Ripley works on two levels. First, it is the story of a young man, Tom Ripley, whose nihilistic tendencies lead him on a deadly passage across Europe. On another level, the novel is a commentary on fictionmaking and techniques of narrative persuasion.” (They neglect to mention that it’s also a ripping good read.)
Travels with Charley in Search of America is $1.99. Steinbeck’s travelogue was one of road trip must-reads in the summer 2017 issue of HSL: “Steinbeck spent most of his career writing about the United States as both a setting and a metaphor for his characters’ experiences, so it seems fitting that in his late life, he set off on a three-month trip to revisit his United States and discover it again with his pet poodle Charley as co-pilot.”
Between the World and Me is $2.99. I don’t like to be evangelical about books and shout “everybody should read this!” but I make an exception for this slim tome, which I do think is a must-read in our modern world. And Suzanne agrees: “You’ve read this, right? If not, please do. I was surprised to find that it was such a slim, undersized book—I almost didn’t see it on the shelf. I am not a newcomer to the idea of white privilege (though I don’t claim to be very far down the path as the process of understanding and changing perspective and learning from others is always ongoing) but I was surprised (and embarrassed) by how challenging I found it at times. It was a wonderful, powerful read—go pick it up. I know I’ll be reading it again.”
Ungifted is $1.99. To be honest, I don’t love the trope that smart kids aren’t good at all the stuff outside the classroom — smart people I’ve known are as diverse as any other group — but if that doesn’t bother you, this is a fun and funny book about a middle school troublemaker who accidentally gets sent to a school for the gifted and talented, where he shakes up — well, pretty much everything.
Horton Halfpott : Or, The Fiendish Mystery of Smugwick Manor; or, The Loosening of M'Lady Luggertuck's Corset is $2.99 — and if that title doesn’t make you smile, steer clear, because this middle grades tongue-in-cheek take on Dickens, Upstairs Downstairs, and Gothic lit totally lives up to its slightly ridiculous, utterly delightful name.
The Age of Miracles is $1.99. Suzanne says, “Adolescent Julia and her family struggle to deal with massive changes as the rotation of the Earth inexplicably slows. While I struggled a bit with the science (or the massive lack of it) in this particular apocalyptic scenario, that’s not really the point. Instead, as Buffy the Vampire Slayer used a Hellmouth to point out the challenges of high school and teenagerhood, Walker uses the possible end of the world as a backdrop for this coming of age tale, where Julia wonders if she’ll even survive the dramatic changes, both personal and global, taking place in her world. (This is one of the only novels on the list that I’d be okay handing to a middle schooler.)”
The Magicians is $1.99. For teenagers (I definitely wouldn’t hand this to younger readers) looking for something to read after growing up on Harry Potter and the Chronicles and Narnia, this dark, subversive take on wizards in the modern world is pretty much perfect.
Gregor the Overlander is $3.99. This fantasy epic takes place in a world deep beneath the city streets, where cockroaches, rats, and spiders have an uneasy truce with the Underlander humans. When Gregor accidentally plunges into the world, following his little sister, the Underlanders think he may be the hero of their ancient prophesy.
Seveneves is $2.99. This hard sci-fi story is a great follow-up for fans of The Martian. What would happen if the surface of the Earth suddenly became uninhabitable? In Stephenson’s world, scientists band together to create a tiny space colony of chosen survivors, a task that comes with constant technical challenges that need to be scienced if humanity is going to stand a chance of survival. (The first part is stronger than the second, but I always feel that way about Stephenson’s books.)
Atonement is $2.99 — and while the sadness at its heart makes it a hard read if you’re in a dark headspace yourself, I think, it’s a gorgeous novel about the perils and pleasures of writing and the lingering shadow of guilt that can’t be absolved. I’d put it on a World War II reading list since you already know that’s going to be sad but rewarding.
George is $3.99. “While George has no doubt she's a girl, her family relates to her as they always have: as a boy. George hopes that if she can secure the role of Charlotte in her class's upcoming production of Charlotte's Web, her mom will finally see her as a girl and be able to come to terms with the fact that George is transgender. With the help of her closest ally, Kelly, George attempts to get the rest of the world to accept her as she is,” says School Library Journal.
Corsets and Codpieces: A History of Outrageous Fashion, from Roman Times to the Modern Era is $1.99. If you’re studying European history with a fashion enthusiast, you’ll want to have this book, which is an often funny and always fascinating review of fashion from the middle ages to Christian Dior.
Moxie is $2.99. I adored this book about a girl whose underground zine accidentally starts a feminist revolution at her Texas high school. (It was one of our favorite books of 2017!)
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
Paper Girls (Vol. 1) is $2.99. Suzanne is such a fan of this graphic novel that it made her best of 2017 list: “For older YA readers (and fans of Stranger Things), Paper Girls is a fantastic time-traveling alien-invasion adventure set in the 80s.”
The Game of Silence is $1.99. Shelli loves this series about an Ojibwe girl navigating changes during U.S. westward migration: “The book opens with Omakayas standing on the shore of her home, an island in Lake Superior. In the far distance, she sees strange people approaching. Once they arrive, her family finds that these people are Anishinabeg people too. (We call them the Ojibwe or Chippewa people now.) They are haggard, hungry, and some of them have lost members of their family. Among them is a baby boy who has lost his parents, and now he becomes Omakayas’s new baby brother. These people are refugees who have been pushed out of their homes by the chimookomanag, or white people, and as the story unfolds, Omakayas’s family realizes that they, too, must leave their homes.”
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.
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for November 23, 2018
The Girl Who Drank the Moon and other great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 11/23/18.
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.)
My book — The A+ Homeschool Planner — is one sale for $12.37 right now. (It’s usually $16.99.) It’s undated, so if you want to snag a copy, this seems like a good time. It’s only available in print, so this doesn’t count as a Kindle book deal! (The ways of Amazon book sales are mysterious, so I don’t know why it’s on sale or how long it will last.)
The Girl Who Drank the Moon is $1.99. I love this book. If you haven’t read it, you should snap it up right now and put it at the top of your readaloud list. From my review: “I thought this little middle grades fantasy was just lovely—a worthy precursor to authors like Gaiman and LeGuin. Barnhill has a knack for telling a complex story in deceptively simple, lyrical fairy tale language, and the way she teases the individual threads of this story together—the brave boy, the magical girl, the witch’s forgotten history, the mad mother—is brilliant. The characters—minor and major—live and breathe; the world of the story feels sturdy enough to stand on its own.”
Lincoln in the Bardo is $1.99. I didn’t love it the way I love Saunders’ short stories, but it was definitely worth reading — and Suzanne says: “I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book either, though I’ve read and enjoyed Saunders’ short stories. It’s a ghost story: Willie Lincoln, dead at age 12 from typhoid fever, is welcomed to the graveyard by a motley assortment of its inhabitants. The narrative is told in alternating spirit voices, which took a minute to get used to but makes for a quick, engaging read. The author’s unmistakable warmth, compassion, and humor is present throughout.”
Origin Story: A Big History of Everything is $4.99. If big history is your thing — and how can it not be your thing, at least sometimes? — this book is a great, scientific history of the world that cover the almost 14 billion years of Earth’s history through major events and trends. Merry Wiesner-Hanks, the President of the World History Association, called it “a remarkable book that puts us self-important humans in our proper place in the cosmos, yet also explains why the story of human culture and knowledge — what Christian calls collective learning — matters for understanding our present world and shaping its future." The author (unsurprisingly) is cofounder of the Big History Project, which a lot of homeschoolers love.
Still on sale
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is $1.99. From our high school Native American history reading list: “Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is at the top of our essential reading list for good reason: Brown’s incisive, authoritative account of the systematic 19th century destruction of Native American populations by the United States illuminates the perspective of the Dakota, Ute, Sioux, Cheyenne, and other tribes who lived through it. This is not an easy book to read, but it’s an important one.”
How to Read Nature: Awaken Your Senses to the Outdoors You've Never Noticed is $2.99. If you, like me, grew up without a lot of hands-on nature study but really want to make nature study part of your homeschool life, this book makes a great beginner’s guide after you’ve bought all the identification guides but still don’t really know where to start.
The Talented Mr. Ripley is $2.99 — and if you’re looking for something thriller-ish to tide you over the break, this is ideal. Amazon.com’s review says: “One of the great crime novels of the 20th century, Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley is a blend of the narrative subtlety of Henry James and the self-reflexive irony of Vladimir Nabokov. Like the best modernist fiction, Ripley works on two levels. First, it is the story of a young man, Tom Ripley, whose nihilistic tendencies lead him on a deadly passage across Europe. On another level, the novel is a commentary on fictionmaking and techniques of narrative persuasion.” (They neglect to mention that it’s also a ripping good read.)
Travels with Charley in Search of America is $1.99. Steinbeck’s travelogue was one of road trip must-reads in the summer 2017 issue of HSL: “Steinbeck spent most of his career writing about the United States as both a setting and a metaphor for his characters’ experiences, so it seems fitting that in his late life, he set off on a three-month trip to revisit his United States and discover it again with his pet poodle Charley as co-pilot.”
Between the World and Me is $2.99. I don’t like to be evangelical about books and shout “everybody should read this!” but I make an exception for this slim tome, which I do think is a must-read in our modern world. And Suzanne agrees: “You’ve read this, right? If not, please do. I was surprised to find that it was such a slim, undersized book—I almost didn’t see it on the shelf. I am not a newcomer to the idea of white privilege (though I don’t claim to be very far down the path as the process of understanding and changing perspective and learning from others is always ongoing) but I was surprised (and embarrassed) by how challenging I found it at times. It was a wonderful, powerful read—go pick it up. I know I’ll be reading it again.”
Ungifted is $1.99. To be honest, I don’t love the trope that smart kids aren’t good at all the stuff outside the classroom — smart people I’ve known are as diverse as any other group — but if that doesn’t bother you, this is a fun and funny book about a middle school troublemaker who accidentally gets sent to a school for the gifted and talented, where he shakes up — well, pretty much everything.
Horton Halfpott : Or, The Fiendish Mystery of Smugwick Manor; or, The Loosening of M'Lady Luggertuck's Corset is $2.99 — and if that title doesn’t make you smile, steer clear, because this middle grades tongue-in-cheek take on Dickens, Upstairs Downstairs, and Gothic lit totally lives up to its slightly ridiculous, utterly delightful name.
The Age of Miracles is $1.99. Suzanne says, “Adolescent Julia and her family struggle to deal with massive changes as the rotation of the Earth inexplicably slows. While I struggled a bit with the science (or the massive lack of it) in this particular apocalyptic scenario, that’s not really the point. Instead, as Buffy the Vampire Slayer used a Hellmouth to point out the challenges of high school and teenagerhood, Walker uses the possible end of the world as a backdrop for this coming of age tale, where Julia wonders if she’ll even survive the dramatic changes, both personal and global, taking place in her world. (This is one of the only novels on the list that I’d be okay handing to a middle schooler.)”
The Magicians is $1.99. For teenagers (I definitely wouldn’t hand this to younger readers) looking for something to read after growing up on Harry Potter and the Chronicles and Narnia, this dark, subversive take on wizards in the modern world is pretty much perfect.
Gregor the Overlander is $3.99. This fantasy epic takes place in a world deep beneath the city streets, where cockroaches, rats, and spiders have an uneasy truce with the Underlander humans. When Gregor accidentally plunges into the world, following his little sister, the Underlanders think he may be the hero of their ancient prophesy.
Seveneves is $2.99. This hard sci-fi story is a great follow-up for fans of The Martian. What would happen if the surface of the Earth suddenly became uninhabitable? In Stephenson’s world, scientists band together to create a tiny space colony of chosen survivors, a task that comes with constant technical challenges that need to be scienced if humanity is going to stand a chance of survival. (The first part is stronger than the second, but I always feel that way about Stephenson’s books.)
Atonement is $2.99 — and while the sadness at its heart makes it a hard read if you’re in a dark headspace yourself, I think, it’s a gorgeous novel about the perils and pleasures of writing and the lingering shadow of guilt that can’t be absolved. I’d put it on a World War II reading list since you already know that’s going to be sad but rewarding.
George is $3.99. “While George has no doubt she's a girl, her family relates to her as they always have: as a boy. George hopes that if she can secure the role of Charlotte in her class's upcoming production of Charlotte's Web, her mom will finally see her as a girl and be able to come to terms with the fact that George is transgender. With the help of her closest ally, Kelly, George attempts to get the rest of the world to accept her as she is,” says School Library Journal.
Corsets and Codpieces: A History of Outrageous Fashion, from Roman Times to the Modern Era is $1.99. If you’re studying European history with a fashion enthusiast, you’ll want to have this book, which is an often funny and always fascinating review of fashion from the middle ages to Christian Dior.
Moxie is $2.99. I adored this book about a girl whose underground zine accidentally starts a feminist revolution at her Texas high school. (It was one of our favorite books of 2017!)
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
Paper Girls (Vol. 1) is $2.99. Suzanne is such a fan of this graphic novel that it made her best of 2017 list: “For older YA readers (and fans of Stranger Things), Paper Girls is a fantastic time-traveling alien-invasion adventure set in the 80s.”
The Game of Silence is $1.99. Shelli loves this series about an Ojibwe girl navigating changes during U.S. westward migration: “The book opens with Omakayas standing on the shore of her home, an island in Lake Superior. In the far distance, she sees strange people approaching. Once they arrive, her family finds that these people are Anishinabeg people too. (We call them the Ojibwe or Chippewa people now.) They are haggard, hungry, and some of them have lost members of their family. Among them is a baby boy who has lost his parents, and now he becomes Omakayas’s new baby brother. These people are refugees who have been pushed out of their homes by the chimookomanag, or white people, and as the story unfolds, Omakayas’s family realizes that they, too, must leave their homes.”
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.
HSL's Kindle Deals of the Day for November 22, 2018
Great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 11/22/18.
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.)
My book — The A+ Homeschool Planner — is one sale for $12.37 right now. (It’s usually $16.99.) It’s undated, so if you want to snag a copy, this seems like a good time. It’s only available in print, so this doesn’t count as a Kindle book deal! (The ways of Amazon book sales are mysterious, so I don’t know why it’s on sale or how long it will last.)
Still on sale
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is $1.99. From our high school Native American history reading list: “Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is at the top of our essential reading list for good reason: Brown’s incisive, authoritative account of the systematic 19th century destruction of Native American populations by the United States illuminates the perspective of the Dakota, Ute, Sioux, Cheyenne, and other tribes who lived through it. This is not an easy book to read, but it’s an important one.”
How to Read Nature: Awaken Your Senses to the Outdoors You've Never Noticed is $2.99. If you, like me, grew up without a lot of hands-on nature study but really want to make nature study part of your homeschool life, this book makes a great beginner’s guide after you’ve bought all the identification guides but still don’t really know where to start.
The Talented Mr. Ripley is $2.99 — and if you’re looking for something thriller-ish to tide you over the break, this is ideal. Amazon.com’s review says: “One of the great crime novels of the 20th century, Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley is a blend of the narrative subtlety of Henry James and the self-reflexive irony of Vladimir Nabokov. Like the best modernist fiction, Ripley works on two levels. First, it is the story of a young man, Tom Ripley, whose nihilistic tendencies lead him on a deadly passage across Europe. On another level, the novel is a commentary on fictionmaking and techniques of narrative persuasion.” (They neglect to mention that it’s also a ripping good read.)
Travels with Charley in Search of America is $1.99. Steinbeck’s travelogue was one of road trip must-reads in the summer 2017 issue of HSL: “Steinbeck spent most of his career writing about the United States as both a setting and a metaphor for his characters’ experiences, so it seems fitting that in his late life, he set off on a three-month trip to revisit his United States and discover it again with his pet poodle Charley as co-pilot.”
Between the World and Me is $2.99. I don’t like to be evangelical about books and shout “everybody should read this!” but I make an exception for this slim tome, which I do think is a must-read in our modern world. And Suzanne agrees: “You’ve read this, right? If not, please do. I was surprised to find that it was such a slim, undersized book—I almost didn’t see it on the shelf. I am not a newcomer to the idea of white privilege (though I don’t claim to be very far down the path as the process of understanding and changing perspective and learning from others is always ongoing) but I was surprised (and embarrassed) by how challenging I found it at times. It was a wonderful, powerful read—go pick it up. I know I’ll be reading it again.”
Ungifted is $1.99. To be honest, I don’t love the trope that smart kids aren’t good at all the stuff outside the classroom — smart people I’ve known are as diverse as any other group — but if that doesn’t bother you, this is a fun and funny book about a middle school troublemaker who accidentally gets sent to a school for the gifted and talented, where he shakes up — well, pretty much everything.
Animal Farm is $2.99. The amazing thing about Orwell’s dystopian fable about farmyard politics is how flexible it is: The story feels as relevant to today’s political landscape as it did when it was published in 1945.
The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America is $1.99. This makes a great spine for a high school Native American history study.
Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States is $1.99. Bryson always does a fantastic job breaking down a complex topic into a series of engaging anecdotes, and that’s true for this book, too, which explores the wild and often wacky world of American English. I’d put this on a high school grammar reading list.
Horton Halfpott : Or, The Fiendish Mystery of Smugwick Manor; or, The Loosening of M'Lady Luggertuck's Corset is $2.99 — and if that title doesn’t make you smile, steer clear, because this middle grades tongue-in-cheek take on Dickens, Upstairs Downstairs, and Gothic lit totally lives up to its slightly ridiculous, utterly delightful name.
The Lie Tree is $2.99. Even when I don’t especially like Hardinge’s work, I find it so interesting, and this book — about a 19th century English girl who gets caught up in the era’s intellectual battle between evolutionary theory and traditional faith when she sets out to solve the murder of her priest/amateur archaeologist father — is no exception. I had some nits to pick, particularly with the resolution, but this one’s totally worth reading.
The Age of Miracles is $1.99. Suzanne says, “Adolescent Julia and her family struggle to deal with massive changes as the rotation of the Earth inexplicably slows. While I struggled a bit with the science (or the massive lack of it) in this particular apocalyptic scenario, that’s not really the point. Instead, as Buffy the Vampire Slayer used a Hellmouth to point out the challenges of high school and teenagerhood, Walker uses the possible end of the world as a backdrop for this coming of age tale, where Julia wonders if she’ll even survive the dramatic changes, both personal and global, taking place in her world. (This is one of the only novels on the list that I’d be okay handing to a middle schooler.)”
The Magicians is $1.99. For teenagers (I definitely wouldn’t hand this to younger readers) looking for something to read after growing up on Harry Potter and the Chronicles and Narnia, this dark, subversive take on wizards in the modern world is pretty much perfect.
Gregor the Overlander is $3.99. This fantasy epic takes place in a world deep beneath the city streets, where cockroaches, rats, and spiders have an uneasy truce with the Underlander humans. When Gregor accidentally plunges into the world, following his little sister, the Underlanders think he may be the hero of their ancient prophesy.
Seveneves is $2.99. This hard sci-fi story is a great follow-up for fans of The Martian. What would happen if the surface of the Earth suddenly became uninhabitable? In Stephenson’s world, scientists band together to create a tiny space colony of chosen survivors, a task that comes with constant technical challenges that need to be scienced if humanity is going to stand a chance of survival. (The first part is stronger than the second, but I always feel that way about Stephenson’s books.)
Atonement is $2.99 — and while the sadness at its heart makes it a hard read if you’re in a dark headspace yourself, I think, it’s a gorgeous novel about the perils and pleasures of writing and the lingering shadow of guilt that can’t be absolved. I’d put it on a World War II reading list since you already know that’s going to be sad but rewarding.
George is $3.99. “While George has no doubt she's a girl, her family relates to her as they always have: as a boy. George hopes that if she can secure the role of Charlotte in her class's upcoming production of Charlotte's Web, her mom will finally see her as a girl and be able to come to terms with the fact that George is transgender. With the help of her closest ally, Kelly, George attempts to get the rest of the world to accept her as she is,” says School Library Journal.
Corsets and Codpieces: A History of Outrageous Fashion, from Roman Times to the Modern Era is $1.99. If you’re studying European history with a fashion enthusiast, you’ll want to have this book, which is an often funny and always fascinating review of fashion from the middle ages to Christian Dior.
Moxie is $2.99. I adored this book about a girl whose underground zine accidentally starts a feminist revolution at her Texas high school. (It was one of our favorite books of 2017!)
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
Paper Girls (Vol. 1) is $3.99. Suzanne is such a fan of this graphic novel that it made her best of 2017 list: “For older YA readers (and fans of Stranger Things), Paper Girls is a fantastic time-traveling alien-invasion adventure set in the 80s.”
The Game of Silence is $1.99. Shelli loves this series about an Ojibwe girl navigating changes during U.S. westward migration: “The book opens with Omakayas standing on the shore of her home, an island in Lake Superior. In the far distance, she sees strange people approaching. Once they arrive, her family finds that these people are Anishinabeg people too. (We call them the Ojibwe or Chippewa people now.) They are haggard, hungry, and some of them have lost members of their family. Among them is a baby boy who has lost his parents, and now he becomes Omakayas’s new baby brother. These people are refugees who have been pushed out of their homes by the chimookomanag, or white people, and as the story unfolds, Omakayas’s family realizes that they, too, must leave their homes.”
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.