Book Q? \"The Lark and the Laurel\" (ROBIN)?

Tagged: , ,

Viewing 6 posts - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • February 11, 2016 at 5:44 pm
    kellywright006
    Participant

    Hi Everyone:
    We are giving TruthQuest a try this year. We are doing Renaissance to Reformation. There was a book suggested for 6-8th grade, The Lark and the Laurel. I did not pre-read it. The girls are telling me it is primarily about a boy/girl relationship. I was asking them what it was teaching them about the time period……and the response was, “they wear wool dresses.” So my question is: Have you ever read it? How do you decide if a book is WORTHY of the time and helping the student further understand the time period.

    Can someone PLEASE tell me if there are some don’t miss books during this time period? I feel like we haven’t read a good one in a while……  🙂

    February 11, 2016 at 6:17 pm
    Melanie32
    Participant

    Hi there Kelly! We are near the end of the Renaissance and Reformation Truthquest guide. I read the Harp and the Laurel Wreath out loud to my daughter. She hated it. I enjoyed it. It really is mostly a romance, but a very tame and clean romance. I would probably have skipped it if I’d known the content a bit better. It’s not a bad book but neither is it an essential one IMO.

    We’ve enjoyed much of The Story of Liberty but it can be rather graphic in it’s description of battles and persecutions.

    Honestly, we haven’t come across very many books in this guide that we love. We’ve mostly used the spines and we have enjoyed those: The Story of Liberty, The 13 Colonies, Our Island Story and Famous Men of the Renaissance and Reformation.

    I just asked my daughter if there’s any books she’s read this year for history that she really liked and she said no. lol.

    We have started A Cure for Treason which is a fictional story set in Elizabethan times that somehow involves Shakespeare. We are enjoying it so far. It is very well written.

    I think the main reason we feel this way is because we’ve already read many of the most recommended books for this time period. I’m also finding that I don’t want to put such a focus on historical fiction now that my daughter is getting older. I prefer to focus on history books and biographies now.

     

     

    February 11, 2016 at 8:24 pm
    kellywright006
    Participant

    @Melanie32  Thank you so much for your detailed response. I really appreciate hearing your experience and perspective. 🙂  When you say you think you’ve read most of the books for this time period, you said there isn’t really one that you guys both enjoyed? I think I should do as you suggested, focus on the spines. We don’t really enjoy Famous Men…..books. They seem dry to us.  (dare I say, as it is a famous book!)  But yes, the Story of Liberty is well-written.

    February 12, 2016 at 6:31 am
    Melanie32
    Participant

    I typed out a response including books we’ve enjoyed on our previous jaunts through this time period but the spam trap seems to have snagged it. :-\ Hopefully, it will eventually work it’s way here. 🙂

    February 12, 2016 at 3:50 pm
    Melanie32
    Participant

    I’m sorry for the confusion. There are books that we’ve enjoyed from this time period. They just weren’t fresh in my mind because we read them a couple of years ago. I pulled out my guide so I could go through it again and find books that we enjoyed in the past.

    The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson is really good.

    We are also reading The Story of Painting by Dora Jansen. We don’t love it but it fills a need and is well written. We take it very slow-just a couple of pages at a time.

    The Second Mrs. Giaconda by E.L. Konisburg is a good one as well. It is a novel based on the woman who was the subject for the Mona Lisa.

    The Spanish Conquistadors in North America by Walter Buehr is a nonfiction book and very well done. We like Buehr’s books.

    The King’s Fifth by Scott O’Dell is a book about a teen who travels with Coronado.

    Shakespeare Stealer by Gary Blackwood.

    Johannes Kepler by John Hudson Tiner.

    Galileo and the Magic Numbers-Sydney Rosen

    I will say that our experience is so subjective to the books that have been available at our library or inexpensive on kindle. I’m sure there are tons of wonderful books in this guide that we haven’t had access to. These are the particular books that I have read and liked for the middle school/early high school years.

    There are many more that we enjoyed when my children were elementary age.

    We don’t really love the Famous Men series either. They are rather dry and I wouldn’t use them until middle school. They do fill a need in our homeschool and provide nice, neat biographies that work well for written narrations.

    I know Robin does Truthquest completely opposite from me. She doesn’t use any spines! I found that to only work for me in the elementary years-mostly because I live in a small town with a small library.

     

     

    February 12, 2016 at 5:07 pm
    RobinP
    Participant

    Hi Kelly,

    Melanie has already given you some great suggestions.  No, I don’t use a spine unless I just need something to fill in a topic I don’t have title for.  But my situation is different.  If I had to rely on my small town library, I would be in a sorry mess.  Having most of the TQ titles at my fingertips is a blessing that I don’t take for granted.

    I love this time period.  One thing I try to keep in mind is the big picture.  During this time, the culture at large was asking a lot of questions.  The answers they came to were vastly different.  Remember the emphasis in TQ is the Big 2 Beliefs.  Who was God (god)?  Who then was mankind?  So as we are going through any time period, this is our focus.  During the R&R, the fork in the road was stark.  Many fell into the humanist camp and many looked to the God of the Bible in answering these questions.    (I’m not talking about the Catholic/Protestant issue in this big picture…  Exploration is also covered in this guide.)  What I love about studying this period in history is that our culture is asking many of the same questions and is coming up with very similar answers in the various camps.  So it’s very timely for us and our children to understand.

    So what about books?  🙂  I always love historical fiction, but for this time period especially, I like biographies.  I like to see what make these individuals tick and what drove them to go in the direction they did.  I like to cover some basic exploration, looking at why they went.  I don’t get bogged down here, though, because after about the third bio of a man and his crew getting on a ship  and sailing off, ya kinda get the idea.  We enjoy  Syme’s bios for these.  Not too long, but exciting.  Don’t miss the art, of course, but take time to consider her commentary to keep you grounded in their worldview.  And do NOT miss Gutenberg!  🙂  Then the big movers and shakers such as Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox.  Science takes off during this period as well.  And, of course, Shakespeare.

    You’re welcome to email or call again with specific book questions.  (I’ll be out of town next week.)  Enjoy your study!

Viewing 6 posts - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
  • The topic ‘Book Q? \"The Lark and the Laurel\" (ROBIN)?’ is closed to new replies.