(Mason)The books on this list are available through an association with
Resources for Research and Answering the Inevitable Children’s Questions:
Read Around the Year Booklist
I was very hesitant to include a booklist with this book. By their very nature, lists are limited. Fortunately, good literature is limitless. However, we have to begin to choose somewhere. This list is intended to be such a beginning. With the list below, the parent educator can apply the principles outlined in this book. She can begin to craft and to plan a curriculum tailored for her children. The list is designed to offer both structure and freedom.
In the third through eighth grade years, care was taken to include at least one living science book and one saint’s biography or book of a spiritual nature in each month. At least one book in every month is marked with an asterix to indicate a science theme. Books which are saints’ stories or spiritual reading are marked with a cross. Most can, and should, be read aloud to the entire family. Everyone can benefit from them. As much as possible, saints’ stories are organized according to feast days or historical themes.
All of these books open doors to further inquiry. Each month is a loosely organized, self-contained study. It is up to the discretion of the parent educator to decide whether or not to use all the books in any given month. For some books, the child will only read and narrate. For others, you may spend the entire month (or more) exploring further the themes presented. Don’t rush; give the child plenty of time to dwell on the subject and to make connections. Allow him time and space to become intimate with the authors and the characters. Perhaps you will plan to cover this booklist in ten years, instead of nine.
Remember, this is a booklist, not a curriculum. You will write the curriculum. I think it would be impossible to adequately cover every book listed for any given year. There are many, many choices here. There are also many books which are not on the list but which would make excellent food for thought. The books here are rich and varied; great springboards for all sorts of interesting studies. A Book of Centuries and a Science Notebook will be necessary organizing tools to help bring the big picture into clear focus.
Over the next few years, it is my intent to write guides to go with each book, offering suggestions for how to use the books in a "real books, home learning" setting. I will be working with Willa Ryan and MacBeth Derham, both of whom you have met through their insightful quotes which are sprinkled liberally throughout the pages of the book. As you share these books with your children, I invite you to write to me and let me know how you have used them.
Blessings!
Elizabeth Foss
P. S. Some have asked why books on the list, especially science books for older children, contain evolutionary content. Click here to find out why.
Click to your area of interest or child's reading list by year:
Kindergarten through Second Grade
Resources For Further Study
As I have explored the themes in the following books with my children, certain resources have proven helpful time and time again. While this is just a short list and by no means exhaustive, it is nice to have these books readily available to answer questions and provide further food for thought. As with any reference books available, discretion must be used to weed out objectionable presentations of the facts. That is all part of the learning experience!
(Mason)The books on this list are available through an association with
A Charlotte Mason Companion (Andreola)Educating The WholeHearted Child (Clarkson)Wild Days (Rackliffe)A Charlotte Mason Study Guide (Gardner)How To Home School (Graham)A Landscape With Dragons (O’Brien)
Resources for Research and Answering the Inevitable Children’s Questions:
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The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version |
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The Catechism of the Catholic Church |
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Butler’s Lives of the Saints |
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Saints of The Church: A Teacher’s Guide To The Vision Books (Allen) |
Kindergarten through Second Grade
Stories for Narration: The child narrates orally and Mom keyboards and prints. The child illustrates and the narrations are gathered into a book:
Kindergarten: The Beginner’s Bible (Henley)
First Grade: The Children’s Book of Virtues, The Children’s Book of America, The Children’s Book of Heroes, The Children's Book of Faith (Bill Bennett, Michael Hague)
Second Grade: Sister Wendy’s Book of Saints (Becket) Once Upon a Time Saints (Pochoki), More Once Upon a Time Saints (Pochoki)
Any of the following three lists can be used with children who are in Kindergarten through second grade.
September
Illustrator Michael Hague
October
Audrey Wood
The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry and The Big Hungry Bear
November
When I Was Young in the Mountains (Rylant)
Appalachia: The Voices of Sleeping Birds (Rylant)
The Rag Coat (Mills)
N C Wyeth’s Pilgrim’s (San Souci)
beginning of the de Paola Christmas unit printed in Chapter Seven
December
de Paola Christmas unit
January
end of de Paola Christmas unit
A New Coat for Anna (Ziefert)
Owl Moon (Yolen)
Stopping By Woods on A Snowy Evening (Frost/Jeffers)
Bear (Schoenherr)
February
Allen Say
March
Eric Carle
April
Beatrix Potter
The Complete Tales of Peter Rabbit
May
Miss Rumphius (Cooney)
Storm in The Night (Stolz)
All Those Secrets of the World (Yolen)
Mirette on the High Wire/Mirette and Bellini Cross Niagara Falls (McCully)
June
Peter Spier
July/ August
Robert McClosky
September
Duffy and the Devil (Rumpelstiltskin) (Zemach)
Rapunzel (Zelinsky)
The Sleeping Beauty (Schart Hyman)
Little Red Riding Hood (Schart Hyman)
October
Goldilocks and The Three Bears (Brett)
Thumbelina (Jeffers)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Jarell/Burkert)
Snow White and Rose Red (Cooney)
Cinderella (Marcia Brown)
Three Billy Goats Gruff (Galdone)
November
Fables (Lobel)
The Aesop for Children (Winter)
December
The Miracle of Saint Nicholas (Whelan)
The Donkey’s Dream (Berger)
The Legend of the Candy Cane (Walburg)
Polar Express (Van Allsburg)
Christmas Trolls (Brett)
January
Jan Brett
Fritz and The Beautiful Horses
February
The Snowy Day (Keats)
Warm As Wool (Sanders)
Katy and The Big Snow (Burton)
Daniel’s Duck (Bulla)
March
Hush Little Baby (Zemach)
Hush Little Baby (Aliki)
Hush Little Baby (Long)
All The Pretty Horses (Jeffers)
London Bridge Is Falling Down (Spier)
April
Max Lucado
May
Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin (Moss )
Stone Soup (il Marcia Brown)
Drummer Hoff (Emberly)
Saint George and The Dragon (Hodges)
June
Thy Friend, Obadiah (Turkle)
Chanticleer and The Fox (Cooney)
Madeline (Bemelmans)
Rain Makes Applesauce (Scheer)
July
The Story About Ping (Flack/Weise)
At the Beach/In the Park/ In the Snow (Huy Voun Lee)
Lon Po Po (Young)
The Five Chinese Brothers (Bishop/Weise)
Maples in the Mist (Minfong Ho)
August
Johnny Appleseed (Kellogg)
John Henry (Keats)
Story of Paul Bunyan (Emberly)
Pecos Bill (Kellogg)
Brer Rabbit and His Tricks (Gorey)
September
Jill Barkelm: Brambly Hedge
October
How to Make An Apple Pie and See The World (Priceman)
Winnie the Pooh (Milne)
The Story of Saint Francis and Saint Patrick and Christopher (de Paola)
November
Gerald McDermott
Arrow to the Sun: A Pueblo Tale
Coyote: A Trickster Tale From The American Southwest
Daniel O’Rourke: An Irish Tale
December
A Christmas Story (Wildsmith)
This is The Star (Dunbar)
How The Grinch Stole Christmas (Suess)
The Legend of the Christmas Rose (Hooks)
January
Oh, A-Hunting We Will Go (Langstaff)
Frog Went A Courtin’ (Rojankovsky)
Clementine (Quackenbush)
Go Tell Aunt Rhody (Aliki)
Skip to My Lou (Westcott)
February
Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters (Steptoe)
Why Mosquitos Buzz in People’s Ears (Aardema/Dillon)
Ashanti to Zulu: African Traditions (Musgrove)
Jambo Means Hello (Feelings)
March
Joanne Ryder
April
Benjamin’s Box (Carlson)
The Tale of Three Trees (Hunt)
Petook: An Easter Story (Houselander)
Does God Know How To Tie His Shoes? (Carlstrom)
May
Arnold Lobel
Frog and Toad series
June
Molly Bang
The Grey Lady and The Strawberry Snatcher
When Sophie Gets Angry—Really, Really Angry
July
Charlotte Zolotow
Mr. Rabbit and The Lovely Present
August
Joy Hulme
What If?: Just Wondering Poems
September
Animal Stories
*James Herriott's Treasury for Children (Herriott)
Just So Stories (Kipling)
The Wind in The Willows (Grahame)
The Book of Dragons (Hague)
+The Children of Fatima and Our Lady’s Message to The World (Windeatt)
October
E.B. White
+The Little Flower: Story of St. Therese of the Child Jesus (Windeatt)
November
Colonial America
The Courage of Sarah Noble (Dagliesh)
The Matchlock Gun (Edwards)
Mr. Revere and I (Lawson)
A Lion To Guard Us ( Bulla)
*One Small Square: Woods (Silver)
+The Miraculous Medal: The Story of Our Lady’s Appearances to St. Catherine Laboure (Windeatt)
December
The Huron Carol (Tyrell)
The Christmas Candle (Evans)
The Littlest Angel (Tazewell)
The Christmas Miracle of Jonathon Toomey (Wojciechowski)
Christmas in Noisy Village (Lindgren)
January/ February
*The Little House Series (Wilder)
+Pauline Jaricot—Foundress of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith (Windeatt)
+St Elizabeth's Three Crowns (Thompson)
March
Marguerite Henry
+Saint Martin de Porres – The Story of the Little Doctor of Lima (Windeatt)
April
Westward Expansion
The Cabin Faced West (Fritz)
On To Oregon (Morrow)
*Tree In The Trail. (Holling)
+Saint Louis de Montfort: The Story of Our Lady's Slave (Windeatt)
May
Southern Studies
Phoebe The Spy (Bulla)
*Minn of the Mississippi (Holling)
Turn Homeward, Hannalee (Beatty)
Be Ever Hopeful, Hannalee (Beatty)
+Patron Saint of First Communicants: The Story of Blessed Imelda Lambertini (Windeatt)
June
Sea Adventures
Pippi Longstocking (Lindgren)
*We Didn’t Mean to go to Sea (Ransome)
*Seabird (Holling)
*Pagoo (Holling)
*One Small Square: Seashore (Silver)
+Saint John Masias: Marvelous Gatekeeper of Lima, Peru (Windeatt)
July
Frances Hodgson Burnett
+For The Children (Callaway)
August
Victorian Fancy
Peter Pan (Barrie)
Alice In Wonderland (Carroll)
The Jungle Books (Kipling)
The Princess and Curdie (MacDonald)
*One Small Square: Pond (Silver)
+Saint Rose of Lima: The Story of the First Cannonized Saint of the Americas (Windeatt)
September
Anne Pellowski
First Farm in the Valley: Anna’s Story
Winding Valley Farm: Annie’s Story
Stairstep Farm: Anna Rose’s Story
Willow Wind Farm: Betsy’s Story
+Prayer (Biffi)
October/November
C.S. Lewis
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
*Autumn Across America (Simon)
*One Small Square: Night Sky (Silver)
+Francis and Clare, Saints of Assisi (Homan)
December
The Way To Bethlehem (Biffi)
Christmas With Anne and Other Holiday Stories (Montgomery )
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (Robinson)
The Night Before Christmas (Moore/Tudor)
January/February
Edgar and Ingri d’Aulaire
*Ben and Me (Lawson)
*Mountain Born (Yates)
+Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Story of the Dumb Ox (Windeatt)
+Saint Isaac and the Indians (Lomask)
March
The Letzenstein Chronicles (Meriol Trevor)
*Kildee House (Montgomery)
+Saint Catherine of Siena: The Story of the Girl Who Saw Saints in the Sky (Windeatt)
April
The Anne of Green Gables Series (Montgomery)
+The Sacraments (Biffi)
May/June
Gene Stratton Porter
+Saint Margaret Mary and the Promises of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Windeatt)
+The Ten Commandments (Biffi)
July /August
Arthur Ransome
+Saint Benedict: The Story of the Father of the Western Monks (Windeatt)
+Saint Dominic: Preacher of the Rosary and Founder of the Dominican Order (Windeatt)
September
Ireland
The Bantry Bay Series (von Stockum)
Red Hugh, Prince of Donegal (Reilly)
*One Small Square: Backyard (Silver)
+St Therese and the Roses (Homan)
October
Vikings
Beorn the Proud (Polland)
Sword Song (Sutcliff)
Norse Gods and Heroes (Colum)
+Brendan The Navigator (Fritz)
One Small Square: Swamp (Silver)
November
Sea Exploration
Leif the Lucky (d’Aulaire)
Christopher Columbus (d’Aulaire)
All Sail Set (Sperry)
Around the World in a Hundred Years (Fritz)
*Ship (Macaulay)
*One Small Square: Coral Reef (Silver)
+Saint Francis of The Seven Seas (Nevins)
December
Letters From Father Christmas (Tolkein)
Winter Holiday (Ransome)
A Christmas Memory (Capote)
January
The Arctic Circle
*Stone Fox (Gardiner)
*Water Sky (George)
*Gentle Ben (Morey)
*Snow Dog (Kjelgaard)
*One Small Square: Arctic Tundra (Silver)
+ My Path to Heaven (Bliss)
February
Classic Young United States
Johnny Tremain (Forbes)
Caddie Woodlawn (Brink)
Sign of the Beaver (Speare)
Sarah, Plain and Tall (MacLachan )
*Exploring the Earth With John Wesley Powell (Elsohn Ross)
+St Francis Solano: Wonder-Worker of The New World and Apostle of Argentina and Peru (Windeatt)
March
Native Americans
*Black Star, Bright Dawn (O’Dell)
Sing Down the Moon (O’Dell)
*Island of the Blue Dolphins (O’Dell)
The Light in the Forest (Richter)
+The Man Who Founded California: The Life of Blessed Junipero Serra (Murville)
+Kateri Tekakwitha: Mohawk Maiden (Brown)
April
Brian Jacques
*One Small Square: Cave (Silver)
+The Apostles' Creed (Biffi)
May
Dog Stories
*Big Red (Kjelgaard)
*Old Yeller (Gipson)
*Call of The Wild (London)
*A Dog of Flanders (Oui’da)
+Bernadette: Our Lady’s Little Servant (Pauli)
June/July/August
Louisa May Alcott
Invincible Louisa (Meigs)
+The Cure of Ars: The Story of St. John Vianny, Patron Saint of Parish Priests (Windeatt)
September
Early Middle Ages
The Story of Rolf and the Viking Bow (French)
Beowulf the Warrior (Serraillier)
+Augustine Came to Kent (Willard)
Son of Charlemagne (Willard)
October
High Middle Ages
Adam of the Road (Gray)
+If All the Swords in England (Willard)
+The Hidden Treasure of Glaston (Jewett)
The Red Keep (French)
*Cathedral (Macauley)
November
Shakespeare
Tales From Shakespeare (Lamb)
Taming of The Shrew (Shakespeare)
Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare)
William Shakespeare and the Globe (Aliki)
The Bard of Avon (Stanley)
Brush Up Your Shakespeare (MacRone)
+Edmund Campion, Hero of God’s Underground (Gardiner )
*The Way Things Work (MacCauley) Part 1
December
Just David (Porter)
The Christmas Tree (Salamon)
The Bronze Bow (Speare)
The Trumpeter of Krakow (Kelly)
January
Genevieve Foster
The World of Captain John Smith
*Science Discoveries: Isaac Newton and Gravity (Parker)
*The Way Things Work (MacCaulay) Part 2
+Mother Cabrini: Missionary to the World (Keyes)
February
Tales From Other Cultures
Shadow Spinner (Fletcher)
The Master Pupeteer (Paterson)
The Samurai’s Tale (Haugard)
The Good Master (Seredy)
+St Philip of the Joyous Heart (Connolly)
+Mother Teresa: In My Own Words (Mother Teresa)
+Mother Teresa (Chawla)
*The Way Things Work (MacCaulay) Part 3
March
China
Red Scarf Girl (Jiang)
Dragon’s Gate (Yep)
Commodore Perry In the Land of the Shogun (Blumberg)
Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze (Lewis)
Homesick (Fritz) Follow up with China Homecoming
+ Mission to Cathay (Polland)
* The Way Things Work (MacCaulay) Part 4
April
Jean Craighead George
+Saint Dominic and the Rosary (Beebe)
May
The Mitchells series (Hilda Von Stockum)
The Mitchells: Five For Victory
+St Hyacinth of Poland – The Story of the Apostle of the North (Windeatt)
*Rascal (North)
June
World War II
The Endless Steppe (Hautzig)
After the Dancing Days (Rostkowski)
The Winged Watchman (Von Stockum)
The Small War of Sergeant Donkey (Daly)
+The Hiding Place (ten Boom)
*The Way Things Work (MacCaulay) Eureka!
July
Ancient Greece
*Archimedes and the Door of Science (Bendick)
A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys (Hawthorne)
d’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths (d’Aulaire)
The Children’s Homer (Colum)
+King David and his Songs: A Story of the Psalms (Windeatt)
August
Early Empires
Tales of the Greek Heroes (Green)
Black Ships Before Troy (Sutcliff)
The Wanderings of Odysseus (Sutcliff)
Between The Forest and The Hills (Lawrence )
Ides of April (Ray)
+Fingal’s Quest (Polland)
*City: A Story of Roman Planning and Construction (Macaulay)
*Exploring Planet Earth (Tiner)
September
George MacDonald and C. S. Lewis
Lilith (MacDonald)
Phantastes (MacDonald)
+The Screwtape Letters (Lewis)
+Abolition of Man (Lewis)
Till We Have Faces (Lewis)
*My Friend Flicka (O’Hara)
October
Chesterton
*Northern Farm : A Glorious Year on a Small Maine Farm (Beston)
November
J. R. R. Tolkein
*Owls in the Family (Mowat)
+Saint John Bosco and Saint Dominic Savio (Beebe)
December
The Christmas Box (Evans)
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Tolkein)
Papa’s Angels (Paxton)
January
Egypt
Mara, Daughter of the Nile (McGraw)
The Golden Goblet (McGraw)
Tales of Ancient Egypt (Green)
The Cat of the Bubastes (Henty)
+Mother Seton and the Sisters of Charity (Power-Waters)
*Cat Mummies (Trumble)
Pyramid (Macaulay)
February
Rosemary Sutcliff
+St Paul the Apostle: The Story of the Apostle to the Gentiles (Windeatt)
March
Courage
Kon-Tiki (Heyerdahl)
*The Swiss Family Robinson (Wyss)
Call It Courage (Sperry)
Onion John (Krumgold)
*Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (Dillard)
+An Introduction to the Liturgical Year (Biffi)
April
France
Les Miserables (Hugo)
The Song at the Scaffold (le Fort)
The Scarlet Pimpernel (Orczy)
In Search of Honor (Hess)
*The Children of Summer (Anderson)
+Cure of Ars: The Priest Who Outtalked The Devil (Lomask)
May
Showell Styles
The Midshipman Quinn Collection (Styles)
*The Yearling (Rawlings )
+Set All Afire (de Wohl)
+Saint Ignatius and the Company of Jesus (Derleth)
June
Joan Aiken
+Saint Anthony and the Christ Child (Homan )
July
Mark Twain
*Rocket Boys: A Memoir (Hickam)
August
Civil War
Rifles For Watie (Keith)
The Red Badge of Courage (Crane)
Wait For Me, Watch for Me Eula Bee (Beatty )
Across Five Aprils (Hunt)
*They Loved To Laugh (Worth)
+Saint Pius X: The Farm Boy Who Became Pope (Diethelm)
September
Robert Louis Stevenson
Flint’s Island (Wibberley)
+Francis of Assisi (Chesterton)
*Darwin on Trial (Johnson)
October
Wuthering Heights (Bronte)
Jane Eyre (Bronte)
Pride and Prejudice (Austen)
+Surprised by Truth (Madrid)
*Life’s Matrix: A Biography of Water (Ball) [This contains evolutionary content. Read after Darwin on Trial and discuss.]
Eyewitness: Chemistry (Newmark)
November
Charles Dickens
+Blessed Margaret of Castello (Bonniwell)
*Antoine Lavoisier: Science, Administration, and Revolution (Donovan)
Eyewitness: Chemistry (Newmark)
December
Dickens
Christmas Stories (includes the above and more)
January/February
Howard Pyle:
The Story of King Arthur and His Knights
The Story of the Champions of the Round Table
The Story of Sir Launcelot and his Companions
The Story of the Grail and the Passing of Arthur
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
+ The Great Heresies (Belloc)
+ The Citadel of God (deWohl)
*Galileo’s Daughter (Sobel)
*Castle (Macaulay)
March
Canada
With Pipe, Paddle and Song (Yates)
Madeline Takes Command (Brill)
Calico Captive (Speare)
+Father Marquette and The Great Rivers (Derleth)
*Incident at Hawk’s Hill (Eckert )
April
Colonial America/Revolutionary War
The Reb and The Redcoats (Savery)
*Carry On, Mr. Bowditch (Latham)
*Diary of An Early American Boy (Sloane)
The Witch of Blackbird Pond (Speare)
+Our Lady of Guadalupe & the Conquest of Darkness (Carroll)
May
Coming of Age
*The Tracker (Brown, Jr)
*The Search (Brown,Jr)
Under a Changing Moon (Benary-Isbert)
The Rose Round (Trevor)
+The Song of Bernadette (Werfel)
June
World War II
The Diary of Anne Frank (Frank )
The Borrowed House (Von Stockum)
The Story of the Trapp Family Singers (Von Trapp)
Escape From Warsaw (Serraillier)
+Forget Not Love: The Passion of Maxmillian Kolbe (Frossard)
*Madame Curie: A Biography (Curie) [Includes a brief description of Mme. Curie leaving the faith after her mother dies.]
July
Modern Church Inspiration
+Witness To Hope (Weigel)
+Edith Stein (Herbstrith)
+We’re On a Mission From God (Bonacci)
*Walden (Thoreau)
*The Outermost House : A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod (Beston)
August
James Herriott
All Things Bright and Beautiful
Lyrical Life Science Volume Three: The Human Body (Eldon)
The Anatomy Coloring Book (Kapit)
+Story of a Soul –The Autobiography of St Therese of Lisieux (John Clarke translation) [This is currently out of print, but well worth the hunt.]
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Copyright 2000 by Elizabeth Foss. All rights reserved.
