Bold means I've read them and recommend them
A
No change means that I haven't read them (and would love some feedback about them - see here) or I can't remember if I would recommend them or not.
They say ages are just guidelines and that everyone should read all of the books in the list for all ages.
Age 13:
Girls: Anne of Green Gables, Montgomery
Boys: Ender's Game, Card
Girls: Little Women, Alcott
Boys: Elantris, Sanderson
The Wizard of Oz, Baum
The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe, Lewis
Mythology, Hamilton
Little House in the Big Woods, Wilder
Beginning Latin Book
The Phantom Tollbooth, Juster
Arithmetic Book
Age 14:
Pollyanna, Porter
A Midsummer's Night Dream, Shakespeare
All's Well that Ends Well, Shakespeare
The Tempest, Shakepeare
Prince Caspian, Lewis
Aesop's Fables
Tom Sawyer, Twain
Beginning Latin Book
Flatland, Abbott
Pre-algebra book
Saint Joan, Twain
Huckleberry Finn, Twain
Little House on the Prairie, Wilder
Best Loved Poems of the American People, Felleman and Allen
Sonnets, Shakespeare
The Jungle Book, Kipling
The Real Thomas Jefferson, Allison et al
Beginning Latin Primer
On Numbers, Asimov
Algebra I book
Supplements:
Thomas Jefferson Education for Teens, DeMille and Brooks
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens, Covey
The Five Love Languages of Teenagers, Chapman
The Fourth Turning, Strauss & Howe
The Walking Drum, L'Amor
Say*Go*Be*Do, Earl
The One Minute Manager, Johnson and Blanchard
The Cashflow Quadrant, Kiyosaki
A Whole New Mind, Pink
Leadership Education, DeMille
Archimedes and the Door of Science, Bendick
Other books scholars should have:
A good dictionary
A good thesaurus
Latin-English dictionary
The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Hirsch
The Elements of Grammar, Shertzer
The Timetables of History, Grun and Simpson
Age 15:
The Declaration of Independence
The Constitution of the United States
The Making of America, Skousen
The Real Benjamin Franklin, Allison et. al.
The Hiding Place, Boom
Antigone, Sophocles
The Real George Washington, Allison et. al.
Intermediate Latin Book
Introduction to Mathematics, Whitehead
Algebra I book continued
Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare
The Monroe Doctrine
The Gettysburg Address, Lincoln
The Law, Bastiat
The Deerslayer, Cooper
Animal Farm, Orwell
Iliad, Homer
Intermediate Latin Book, cont
A Beginner's Guide to Constructing The Universe
Geometry Book
Supplement:
Revolutionary Wealth, Toffler
Megatrends, Naisbitt
Here There be Dragons, Owen
Cash, Cars, and College, Bolon
The Belgariad, Eddings
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Covey
A Thomas Jefferson Education
First Things First, Covey
The Millennials, Strauss & Howe
Bendigo Shafter, L'Amor
As A Man Thinketh, Allen
SAT/ACT prep books (when the time is right)
Age 16:
Odyssey, Homer
The Trial and Death of Socrates, Plato
Emma, Austen
Hamlet, Shakepeare
Torah, Genesis
Bible, Matthew
Qur'an, Cows
Intermediate Latin Primer
Euclid, Elements books I-II
Algebra II book
Our Home, Sargent
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
"I Have a Dream", King
Les Miserables, Hugo
Democracy in America, Tocqueville
Notebooks, Da Vinci
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass
Advanced Latin Book
Arithmetic, Nichomachus
Algebra II cont
The Science of Getting Rich, Wattles
"Give Me Liberty of Give Me Death", Henry
Othello, Shakepeare
In Flander's Field, McCrae
Pride and Prejudice, Austen
The Art of War, Tzu
Supplements:
The Human Odyssey, Armstrong
Dumbing Us Down, Gatto
The Mallorean, Eddings
The Jackrabbit Factor, Householder
The Coming Aristocracy, DeMille
Girls: Wild at Heart, Eldridge
Boys: Captivating, Eldridge
The Thomas Jefferson Home Companion, DeMille and Jeppson
The Five Love Languages, Chapman
The Eighth Habit, Covey
The Mentor, DeMille and Earl
The Path, DeMille and Earl
The Alchemist, Coelho
Ages 17-18
Poetry and Mathematics, Buchanan
Advanced Latin Book
Elements, Euclid
Trigonometry Book
The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Tolkien
The Foundation series, Asimov
Where the Red Fern Grows, Rawls
Man of the Family, Moody
The Five Thousand Year Leap, Skousen
Trigonometry Book cont
"The Present Crisis", Lowell
Advanced Latin Book
A Brief History of Time, Hawking
Calculus Book
Girls: Ender's Game, Card
Boys: Little Women, Alcott
Girls: Elantris, Sanderson
Boys: Anne of Green Gables, Montgomery
Jo's Boys, Alcott
The Dhammapada
The Bhagavad Gita
Nichomachaean Ethics
Legal and Medical Latin book
Relativity, Einstein
Calculus book
Fun looking over the lists. Great idea making them your "own" like that, crossing out and bolding. Until I looked at this one I hadn't noticed "Where the Red Fern Grows" on this till age 17-18. Interesting... I read that with mine a few years ago.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure what I think about Enders game and Elantris. As I mentioned I believe they are graphically violent and have strong language. I also believe they have great story lines and teach great values. I would not have my kids read them at 13. I read Enders Game for the first time in College and was disturbed by the violence...ofcourse I am a female and I don't think they are recommended for girls until 17 :)
ReplyDeleteLoved the Phantm Tollbooth...sooo many good lessons in that book. I could read that one again and again with my kids to learn some of those lessons better.
As I mentioned I still have not decided what I think about Narnia, The wizard of oz series, Mythology, Here there be Dragons, The Belgariad, The Alchemist, Lord of the Rings, or the Foundation series. While I have read almost all of these books, and have them all on my shelves (except the Belgariad) I do not know that I will encourage my children to do so. They are not ones that I sit down and pick up again and again. They all contain magic in some form or another. I still have not decided where to draw the line on this one. I will agree that while in some cases the main character is just "affected" by good magic that it still teaches that good magic happens. I would rather teach that good blessings come from God.
It is a hard one because many of these books do teach such good principles. I'd love to hear your decision on them. For example what about Lord of the Rings?...pretty graphic violence, main characters use the power of magic to control circumstances and effect other characters. What do you think?
Thanks for the heads up about Elantris and Ender's game. I do remember reading Enders game a long time ago and finding it somewhat disturbing, but I wanted to read it again to see why it was recommended and what it would teach my son (at age 13).
ReplyDeleteAbout the magic in the books, I think I've decided to teach my kids that the magic they see at the fair is just optical illusions and that the magic that they talk of in books is symbolic of power. I want them to understand that Satan has power, but people who want that kind of power end up miserable and dark. I want them to understand that God's power is what brings light, truth and peace on the Earth.
I really like how in the Lord of the Rings whenever someone thinks they can harness the ring and use it's power for good - they become selfish and they loose themselves in the process. I think it is a very good description of what really happens.
I also love how it shows that even though the enemy is so powerful and at times may seem impossible to overcome - even a little Hobbit with love in his heart can overcome it with the right power on his side.
I don't remember a lot of graphic violence in the books, but it has been a while since I read them. The movies are certainly violent though :-)
I felt the same way about magic in The Chronicles of Narnia. In Narnia, Lewis is even more clear about where the good power comes from and the consequences of doubting that power, as well as the consequences of trying to use the bad power for good. Whenever the children try to do things their own way, they learn that the best thing to do is to find out what Aslan would have them do instead - and he makes it very clear who Aslan represents.
I think the kids and I learned many things from the books and they helped my kids want to be better, courageous people on the right side of the battle.
I do think it's important that parents discuss these books with their children as they read to make sure there is no doubt about what the good power represents.
That's the conclusion I've come to as of now anyway :-)
Most 'classic' books I have read, I love and can see why they are classics. My most recent book like that was Little Britches. I love it and can't wait to get the rest of the books in the series.
ReplyDeleteHowever, occasionally there are some 'classics' that come highly and widely recommended and I can't for the life of me, understand why. lol Two such books are The Alchemist and The 7 habits of highly effective Teens.
The Alchemist is quite a short book really and it got me hooked right at the start but I felt as the book went along, it kind of lost its way. It definitely has a lot of one-liners that are thought provoking and fairly insightful but I felt that ultimately, it lacked depth. The book was very promising and got half way there but in the end was lacking the substance necessary to tie it altogether with any sort of real life enriching profundity. I also felt its spirituality degenerated into new-ageism.
The 7 habits of teens - I felt that Sean Covey didn't quite know his audience - wayward kids from broken homes or middle-class kids who just need a push in the right direction? I also think there were a lot of underlying lessons to the book that Sean Covey probably didn't realise were there. Things like; Parents are a drag; Everyone likes the beautiful girl and the buff guy; If your friends have problems you should leave them alone to work it out themselves; A healthy marriage is one where the husband and wife are fairly independent of each other etc. Not to mention a whole host of wrong-side-of-the-tracks stories. I concluded that if a teen is willing to read a self-help book, they may as well just read Steven Covey's original 7 habits book and leave out all the teenage angst. Actually what I would highly recommend in its place is the book, Do Hard Things by the Harris twins. That is motivating without all the extra junk included.