Public domain recommended books

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  • June 5, 2009 at 2:42 am
    mommix3
    Member

    Hi, I was checking out the public domain books on sites like project

    Guetenburg(sp?). I am SO excited over the books on there.But there are so many books to choose from. I need someone to help and recommended good reads or some that would go along with our studies. I don’t know where to start. We are doing history module 1. My kids are in grades 7,6,4,and K. Thanks so much!!

    Angela

    June 5, 2009 at 3:29 am
    Rachel White
    Participant

    I don’t use Gutenburg, I use the Baldwin Project. I’m sending you the link to the subgenre page for you to see how much you have to choose from; you can go to home from there:

    http://www.mainlesson.com/displaybooksbysubgenre.php

    Any James Baldwin, Jacob Abbott, M.B. Synge, Alfred Church, James Otis, Mara Pratt history for the younger set, H.E. MArshall. I could go on and on. If you go to the Yesterday’s Classics website

    http://www.yesterdaysclassics.org

    you’ll find many of these titles that you can browse through and get the age recommendation.

    There’s even the Charlotte Mason Geography book in progress!

    Rachel

    June 5, 2009 at 2:42 pm
    Lesley Letson
    Participant

    thanks for this info – I just found out about Yesterday’s Classics recently, they have a lot of good books on there (a lot that CM recommends in her writings) – but I think that website is a .com and not a .org

    also, I found the CM geography book on the Ambleside online website – it is a scan of the original I believe.

    June 5, 2009 at 8:19 pm
    caroline4kids
    Member

    Which one of these series is the BEST? I am looking for something that has a nice conversational tone and is enjoyable to read. I can’t read them all, so I would like to hear what has gone over well in your homes. 🙂

    June 6, 2009 at 1:19 am
    Rachel White
    Participant

    We’ve enjoyed the James baldwin books; Fifty Stories Retold and Thirty More Stories retold. It should be required reading in gov’t. schools too to add some culture into these kids. That one’s good for an intro into W.History without ‘doing’ W. History.

    We’re starting Viking Tales as we ease into that time period.

    For history, since I have two 8 yr. olds, we’re using the Pratt history right now.

    We’re only on the 3rd chapter, but so far so good. I’m definitely going to use the series as it is conversational. When they’re older, I will use either the Streams of history or the Marshall books, or Synge. I can’t make up my mind yet. The Streams of History seem to be World History for the younger set, so I might actually start reading the first one (ages 8-10) to them this next year as a gentle introduction to World History on one day; then continue American history side by side on the other day. I just don’t know….Or I may use it with our Bible readings as a parallel. I’m still trying to work it out in my head. I know there was someone else on this forum who have used the Streams of History and loved it.

    Prior to Pratt’s, we read Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans by Eggleston-wonderful! That was when they were 6 and 7 yrs. old.

    We just finished “Tales and Customs of the Ancient Hebrews” for our Shabbat readings, which was great; it added in some techinical information about the land, livelihoods, clothing, and weaponry, etc…to the stories presented. I recommend it. Next on the list is The Story of the Chosen people”

    I have The Columbus Story when we get there and Richard of Jamestown when we get there , too. I’m also going to use the “Our Little…Cousin of Long Ago” books as personal history reads during their respective time periods.

    For science, I’m using the wonderful Pierson books (Among the Forest People), then will go into Seed Babies and Little Wanderers over the Spring and Summer, then start the Buckley books out loud, with us reading the Pierson’s as a non-narrating read aloud. We also like Parables from Nature; a must have. Excellent info, with excellent stories. We also liked the Burgess books.

    As they get older, we’ll go into the Fabre books, as they are chick full of info in a wonderful storyline! We have one and I have skimmed through. Also, books covering any subjects left out, like the geology one.

    We have Poems Every Child Should Know, poems of which every child should know about!

    I definitely, most HIghly recommend the Reading-Literature readers; we’ve used them all so far and they are great! There is awesome material in those little books to wet your childs appetite for the Good stuff!

    I haven’t been disappointed with any of my selections from them. You can pre-read them on the website.

    I don’t know if I’ve helped or not!

    Rachel

    June 6, 2009 at 6:57 pm
    caroline4kids
    Member

    Rachel,

    I just printed out your last post–it is so full of wonderful suggestions! My 8 year old is narrating from Eggleston’s book that you mentioned. It is wonderful. Thanks for the great suggestions. 🙂

    June 6, 2009 at 7:27 pm
    jojo
    Member

    Hi im wondering about this topic also, Im doing Module 2 and looking at the yesterdays classics list under Greeks tab and cant decide which ones would be the better to choose from like top 5 you have read? If you could give a list of your favorites that would help thanks billiejo

    June 8, 2009 at 2:23 am
    Rachel White
    Participant

    Angela,

    I realize I don’t think I answered your question regarding Module 1. I haven’t done an Egypt/Africa study; however, I would use the method of consistancy among the authors I mentioned if you can find books by them on this area in history. You could also look through some classical catalogs and get some titles and search those out? Also, doing a search on the Bookfinder will come up with many you can get from your library.

    Caroline4kids,

    You are so welcome! It blesses me that I could offer you something that may help you out!

    Billiejo,

    I haven’t gone through module 2 yet; just been on American history. However, I have a rule of thumb to use books written by authors I have found to like their writing style. Those by J. Baldwin, and Alfred Church; Specifically, “A Story of the GOlden Age of Greek Heroes” seems a wonderful intro for background for the HOmer’s accounts, giving children a greater interest. Depending on the ages of your children, if you have older ones the ” Three Greek Children” and “The Story of the Persian war” stand out to me from A. Church; for the younger or as a read-aloud for all of them together, A. Church’s Illiad and Odyssey versions.

    I’d choose the book by Nathaniel Hawthorne, as it’s an absolute classic (1852), being if not the first, one of the first writings for children of the Greek myths, over James Baldwin’s “Old Greek Stories”.

    I believe many classical methods highly recommend the Famous Men of Greece, as they focus on factual men as opposed to the mythological.

    From a geography perspective, “The Peeps at many Lands” Series seems to be a good resource;

    for a spine, you may want to get in touch with Lisa at Y.C. and ask her the pros and cons of The Geurber book (Guerber always thought of highly, many here have used it) and the Streams of History. Also, you could ask her about the differences between the three Plutarch’s versions.

    For independant reading for the mid-elementary age, I think the “Our Little Cousin…” series is wonderful.

    If you have ones from ages 6-9, the “Stories From Plato and Other Classic Writers” would be quite enriching I think.

    YOu don’t want to overlap material and waste time in the process by choosing too many books, or get ‘stuck’ in the time period, but cover the material for the ages that you have and light the fire if interest and set the stage for more mature reading later on.

    Okay, I know that’s ALOT more than 5! And I’ve read NONE of them! :DI Also, I don’t know what ages you’re talking about. However, I’d be happy to break it down, simplify it a bit more if you could give your children’s ages. That helps put the selections into columns of ‘read now’ and ‘read when we go through this again later’. I make those lists so I don’t forget about them for a later time period.

    Maybe someone else could chime in if they’ve been through this time period. Maybe start a new post for this module time period to get more varied feedback?

    Do a search on the bookfinder for library books and classical catalog for book choices as well, just as for Module 1.

    Rachel (I’m sorry my posts are always so long!)

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