I agree you could easily substitute a spine, and often the Famous Men books are read a chapter at a time. So if the one you substitute has the same (or similar) number of chapters, you just read Chapter 1 of the substitute when it says to read Chapter 1 of the Famous Men book.
And to that, I TOTALLY understand. We mustered our way through Famous Men this year with Module 4 (The Middle Ages and Rennaisance and Reformation), but we will NOT be using the next one. Our children just were not getting anything out of it and honestly I was struggling too at the end.
We all LOVED the Geography book (Around the World) and we don't use the Bible plan b/c we go to a Bible Study that is 9 months long from Sept. to May but ironically it was the SAME book suggested in the guide so that worked out well. We just follow the plan in our Bible study rather than the one in the guide.
The guides are VERY USER-FRIENDLY. VERY user-friendly. At the beginning of each section they have a list of all suggested books along with author right beside so easy to find on-line or at your library. Then the next page has a type of chart with the books broken down by age/grade. I copy this actually for each of our children's assignment notebooks and highlight their column. Super easy to use this for your DC to follow along as well.
The books they suggest for individual reading are the best of the best. All of our DC have thoroughly enjoyed the one read this year.
We read each morning together; me reading and 3 oldest reading as well which is a great way to access their reading ability for emerging readers and build their confidence too; I don't stop them but they often will stop and ask which is great!
To give you an idea of the amazing reading your DC will do in a given year, this is what I recorded our children reading this past year:
READ ALOUD AS A FAMILY (5 DC, ages 13, 12, 9, 6 and 6, and ME!)
• Famous Men of the Middle Ages, Rob Shearer, Ed.
• Ink on His Fingers, Louise Vernon
• Around the World in a Hundred Years, Jean Fritz
• Castle, David Macaulay
• Christopher Columbus, Bennie Rhodes {Read separately}
• Cathedral, David Macaulay
• The Man Who Laid the Egg, Louise Vernon
• The Beggar’s Bible, Louise Vernon
• Famous Men of the Renaissance and Reformation, Rob Shearer, Ed.
• Thunderstorm in Church, Louise Vernon
• The Bible Smuggler, Louise Vernon
READ INDEPENDENTLY BY MY 9YO SON:
• The Vikings, Elizabeth Janeway
• Adam of the Road, Elizabeth Janet Gray
• Night Preacher, Louise Vernon
• Various Thornton Burgess Books {free on Kindle}
READ INDPENDENTLY BY MY 12YO SON (He is reading on a lower level b/c he just began learning English 2 years ago):
• The Making of a Knight, Patrick O’Brien
• Leif the Lucky, Ingri Daulaire
• Classics in Mandarin (he still speaks and read it fluently, and we intend to keep it that way! :)
READ INDEPENDENTLY BY MY 13YO SON:
• White Stag, Kate Seredy
• The Shining Company, Rosemary Sutcliff
• The Magna Charta, James Daugherty
• In Freedom’s Cause, G.A. Henty {Kindle}
• The Prince and the Pauper, Mark Twain {Kindle}
• He also reads voraciously about WWI and WWII (needless to say he can't wait for this next year when the module will actually be in the time period he loves to study).
Without the SCM guides, there is NO WAY IN THE WORLD I could compile a list of books like the ones above. I am just not that knowledgable about GREAT books, and the guides make it so easy for me to figure out a plan and to execute it. The guides are in my opinion some of my best homeschool budget money spent. Really are affordable. I do buy the printed book but even those are VERY reasonably priced.
HTH
