Kerij-I read that hand out from SWB and listened to the lecture that goes along with it a year or so ago. They were both really good. 🙂
I came back to give a review of Bravewriter’s Boomerang now that we are actually using the Animal Farm guide. I decided to go ahead and try one out since my daughter has been reading about World War 1 and 2 and Animal Farm fits this time period so well. So far we are both enjoying it. I really do like these literature guides and I think they are perfect for most classics. However, Animal Farm is does actually have much deeper meanings and the guide doesn’t go into that very much. For most classics, I simply want my child to enjoy the story and do a bit of critical thinking concerning plot lines and symbolism. For Animal Farm, I want to go deeper than that and this guide doesn’t do that very well. I am using the free Glencoe lit guide to delve deeper into Animal Farm.
That said, the other guides I purchased look perfect for the books that will be studied.
The other thing that I wanted to share is that I think the guides are way overpriced. They are around $10 and some of them are only 5 or 6 pages! I’m okay with it since I purchased a bundle through Homeschool Buyer’s Coop for a discounted price but I would be highly upset if I had paid $10 for one of these guides. Things like Lightning Lit and Illuminating Literature are way less expensive, considering you get the whole, year-long program for the same price as 5 of the Boomerang guides and 5 of the Boomerang guides would only last you 5 months if you used them as written.
Honestly, I am loving Bravewriter but am kind of blown away by the prices. I really like the sample for Help For Highschool but the price is ridiculous for a 12 week program that is only available as an ebook! Even with the discount at the Coop, it’s still $40! I could buy a really nice hard bound book for that price. I think Bravewriter would be so much more popular if Julie would price her programs more reasonably.