Literature suggestions

Ooo, the first thing that comes to mind is the Little Britches series. (Warning: there is some coarse cowboy language, especially in the first couple, but if you’re reading aloud you can easily edit that out.)

As far as how many each year, it depends on how many chapters they have and how long the chapters are. For example, the chapters in a Louisa May Alcott book or a Charles Dickens book are sometimes loooooooooooong. We usually have to break them up into several days. So those books take longer than one with average length chapters. I know that doesn’t help much with your planning. But I’ve found with literature it’s easiest to just say, “Let’s do these books next” and not worry about when we finish them. If we happen to lop over into the next year, that’s fine. We just keep reading a chapter a day, M-F, and enjoying them together. 🙂

I’m eager to hear others’ recommendations for boys 8 and 13!

We second the Little Britches series, my boys loved them!

There are a number of excellent Lamplighters, my boys especially loved The Giant Killer, Sir Knight of the Splendid Way, and The White Knights. We loved many Jean Craighead George books, like My Side of the Mountain. Farley Mowat is a big hit here, especially The Dog That Wouldn’t Be and Lost in the Barrens. The classic American history books like Johnny Tremaine, Carry On Mr. Bowditch. Leaders in Action biographies. The Chronicles of Narnia. Anything by Edith Nesbit. Sam Campbell’s nature stories. Meindert deJong books. The Hobbit. The Shakespeare Stealer series. Marguerite Henry books. Patricia St. John’s books. Henty books. Swiss Family Robinson. The Bronze Bow. The Good Master and the Singing Tree. The Winged Watchman. So many books, so little time! LOL

We don’t schedule these, we just accumulate a shelf full and the boys pick which one to do next. I never know how many we’ll do, we just read for a set time each evening.

Michelle D

You know, I’ve never really put our evening read-alouds in the Organizer. I keep a list inside a pantry door where we write books we’ve read out loud, and the children write down the books they’ve read that are not on their school or free reading lists, and I just stick it in our notebooks when one is full. 🙂

To add to Bookworm’s list:

Farley Mowat’s Owls in the Family and The Curse of the Viking Grave (sequel to Lost in the Barrens).

Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain series.

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Jim Kjelgaard’s books: Big Red, Outlaw Red, Wild Trek, and many more.

Walt Morey’s Gentle Ben and others.

Mary Norton’s The Borrowers series.

Boys will even enjoy books considered to be more for girls such as the Little House books and Anne of Green Gables.

Hope this gives you some of ideas.

Caddie Woodlawn reminded me of The Pink Motel by the same author. Don’t be fooled by the title, it is a good book for both girls and boys.

Bookworm, Curse of the Viking Grave is out of print but I noticed that there are several used copies available at Amazon.