All Through The Ages by Christine Miller

Yes. and Yes.

This is a HUGE book of lists – just lists and lists of books.  She does list a few of the “Eyewitness” or DK or Usborne-type books, but not many and they are mostly in the Overview of ___ Sections.

The book is divided into sections of history by chronological order.  Within each section, it’s divided again by age-group (grades 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12).  Then, the second part of the book is Geographical History — by each region/country of the world; and again divided by age-group.)

I love my copy for so many reasons.  First, I added extra pages to the back of mine (a spreadsheet with blanks for adding more books as I come across them) and had the book and extra pages spiral bound together.  So, now it’s completely useable.

At the end of each historical time period she gives a timeline.  For the ancients, she also gives little essays on that time-period and the where’s and why’s. 

I mostly use ATTA as a reference (my daughter read all the books I had planned on for ____, now what can she read that’s in the same historical time period).  ATTA does list  a one-line long synopsis of each book.  Very brief, doesn’t really tell you much, but maybe who the main character is or during the lifetime of whom the book takes place.

Obviously, not every book will strike every person as a living book  – but most all the suggestions I’ve taken from ATTA we’ve liked.  I think it’s a fabulous resource just because it’s in print — and I don’t have to print it out or write down the lists of books.  They’re all organized already.  I use my copy to highlight the books I own, write in “Lib.” – meaning the library has this book; or jot down the name of a friend who owns the book so that I can borrow it when I need to.  And like I said, I had pages added to mine so that as I find living books that aren’t listed, I can add those.  I’ve had my copy for two years and added 14 books to my list that she didn’t have.  (Probably because they weren’t published yet or were published by small Christian publishers.)

I really like the book a lot too. I do have one beef tho, that in each section the books are in no particular order. Yes they are divided by age and type of book, but once it’s broken down, the books are in no certain order which makes them difficult to find if you look something up in the index. I think it would make much more sense to have them in ABC order by title. I even emailed the author asking if there was any rhyme or reason to the order they were in (thinking maybe I was missing something obvious), but I never heard back from her. I assume she just didn’t care and/or found my email to be offensive because I asked. Nonetheless, I think the resource is valuable for homeschooling families.

I have it and since we do not use the public library, I do not use it much. I look at catalogs like Sonlight and Veritas Press for ideas of good books.