Greece & Rome must reads for a 9th grader

These are in no particular order and I’m not separating for true history reading vs. literature reading.

Till We Have Faces – C.S. LewisAugustus Caesar’s WorldJulius Caesar – ShakespeareSome version of Greek Myth’s – we like D’Aulaire’sHittite WarriorBen HurEagle of the Ninth – if he hasn’t read it

Any/ all of the GA Henty books for the time period:The Cat of BubastesThe Young CarthaginianBeric the BritonFor the Temple

The Golden Goblet – if he hasn’t read itGilgamesh, the HeroSome version of the Iliad and the Odyssey – we used Sutcliff for one hs-er & Alexander Pope’s version of the Odyssey for the other.  I can’t seem to find whose translation Iliad she read but both I & O are available free for the Kindle.

Famous Men of Greece gives a good overview of the key players throughout their history.Famous Men of Rome is what the HS girls are using for Rome this year, but I almost like The Story of Rome better which my 6th grader is using. It seems that there are some interesting and important-ish points that are skipped in FMoR.

I’m sure I’ve forgotten some that should be here.  I have misplaced my notebook that has the planning information in it for each of the years.  It’s somewhere in with the books for this year, so when I dig it out again later today or tomorrow, I’ll add to the list if there is something that jumps out at me. 🙂

Pax,

~jacqleene

“Famous Men of Greece gives a good overview of the key players throughout their history.Famous Men of Rome is what the HS girls are using for Rome this year, but I almost like The Story of Rome better which my 6th grader is using. It seems that there are some interesting and important-ish points that are skipped in FMoR.”

I TOTALLY agree with Blue J above.

I would seriously have him read The Story of Greece and The Story of Rome (or The Story of the Greeks and The Story of the Romans). They are comprehensive histories. Then let him pick a couple of the battles, commanders, or important people to do more indepth reading about.  The Famous Men series can easily be correlated for people he is interested in, plus Alfred J. Church and Jacob Abbott wrote some very interesting adventurous stories about leaders and events in those cultures.  Most of those are availble from Yesterday’s Classics as paperbacks, so you could let him review their summaries and choose a couple per culture.  That way the two of you could plan together and maybe get some combined interest going. =)

For reading a few myths, I HIGHLY recommend A Wonder Book and Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne. 

A cool book that ties the Ancient Greek and Romans together through the Aeneid (Trojan war survivors become the forefathers of the Roman race) was Penelope Lively’s book called “In Search of A Homeland: The Story of the Aeneid.”  Really enjoyed this one myself.  (Alfred J Church also wrote one called The Aeneid for Boys and Girls, which I just finished and it was good too.)

Another way to have a visual of the art and architeture of the periods are the books called Ancient Greek Art and Ancient Roman Art. They are not high school level, but they give a visual picture plus talk about the stuff he will read in the spine books listed above and are inexpensive.

ACK! Just realized that the formatting on the post I wrote is all mixed up.  Sorry about that.  I edited to add one word, and forgot to check the whole thing to make sure the formatting stayed as I’d had it.  sigh… sorry.

Yes, the ones by Christine Miller have been updated and are physical books.

I have the YC version, but you can also get the original Guerber’s for Kindle through Heritage History for $1.99, as well as Famous Men. A lot of the people your son could choose to read about will also be listed for individual purchase there too.  I haven’t checked Amazon for free ones, though. 

Here is a list of their Ancient Greece books:

http://www.heritage-history.com/www/heritage-store.php?pid=hcc_hcc_ancient-greece_1

Here is a list of their Ancient Rome books:

http://www.heritage-history.com/www/heritage-store.php?pid=hcc_hcc_ancient-rome_1

If you do Augustus Caesar’s World, you will still need to add in something as there will be gaps in that the details are left out or aren’t covered at all in a few cases.  Either pairing it with Famous Men or The Story of Rome or another Roman history would be good.