Book Basket – Reading List Resources

May 7, 2009 > No Comments

We are ready for another library trip, perhaps today. I’ve found that our children devour their library books in the first 3 days after a visit. If there is a book that didn’t really catch their interest and was tossed aside, I pull the book out and dig and find a topic that might catch their interest. Sometimes it works…and sometimes it doesn’t!

It can be overwhelming with all the thousands of books to choose from to find books that are interesting, wholesome, encourage right attitudes, and reinforces the things we are training our children in. Have you ever noticed how many children’s books promote disrespectful attitudes to parents, dislike of siblings, and name calling? I say they promote it because it is often never shown in a bad light, it is normal, expected of children to be that way. And while it may be normal, it’s not what we want to encourage, and we certainly would like to create a new normal in our family.

Having said that, I don’t really have a method I use. Trial and error is my method, but that often is too time consuming. Not only is it time consuming, but disappointing too. There have been many times that we’ve began a book, get interested only to end it ½ way because it just wasn’t what we (and sometimes even the children!) wanted to fill their minds with.

Toni, over at The Happy Housewife offers a GREAT list of resources to help filter through all the many, many books @ your local library.

While I don’t have book review resources (although I plan to implement the resources Toni suggests) I do have resources that I trust to offer good books.

Here are 2 of those resources:

Vision Forum – Books that are great for homeschooling, encourages young men to be courageous, young ladies to be virtuous.
Keepers of the Faith – 100% trust their book list. They carefully pick each book and even have a list of books/authors they’ve reviewed.
Robinson Curriculum – This is the method of homeschooling we loosely follow. The core of this curriculum is reading and you are provided a couple hundred books on disks. You can print them out and use tons of printer ink or you can check them out for free from the library. We have done both. While I don’t like all the books on this list, it is a great guideline. You can see the list of books here.

Now on to my book basket list this week.

You Are My I Love You, by Maryann K Cusimano ~ Great read-aloud-bedtime-book! It is a cute rhyming story about a little bear and his day with his parent “I am your parent; you are my child. I am your quiet place; you are my wild” Sweet, sweet book.
The Ugly Truckling, by David Gordon ~ I wasn’t so crazy about this book, but my 7 yr old boys liked it? It is written about a little airplane born to a Momma truck and on his quest to fit in and become a truck he realizes that he is actually an airplane. A typical “Ugly Duckling” story line.
Anna Banana 101 Jump-Rope Rhymes, by Joanna Cole ~ I checked this one out for my 10 yr old girl who only knew of a couple rhyming songs. I plan for her to write down a few of her favorites for reference. A lot of great jump rope songs and some I had forgotten about!
Emily Post’s The Guide to Good Manners for Kids, by Peggy Post ~ I loved this book but the children didn’t take to it. I plan to keep this one longer and go through it with them. It is written in an interesting format and can be picked up and flipped through. Not a heavy read, but chocked full of good manners for things such as playtime, weddings, funerals, eating out, visiting the hospital etc. Quite possibly a book we’ll purchase in the future.
True Green Kids, by Kim McKay and Jenny Bonnin ~ I thought I would like this book more than I did, while it had a lot of good ideas to save money and become “greener” it had a lot of ideas we could not implement for various reasons and I felt it could promote dissatisfaction in children that were not able or allowed to have gadgets, internet/computer time, or $$ to implement the ideas. This is another book I’ll keep longer and go over certain ideas that we CAN implement.

From my 10 yr old girl:

Molly Pitcher Girl Patriot, by August Stevenson ~ This book is about a girl named Mary Ludwig whom people call Molly Pitcher. She lived during the Indian Wars and the Revolutionary War. Molly Pitcher helped sick soldiers and one time during a battle her husband passed out while loading a cannon, she took over & they won the battle because of it. George Washington asked to meet with her and he gave her a metal. And she was then made a Sergeant! It is a very interesting book!

What is in YOUR book basket this week!? Please share with us over at The Happy Housewife and then see what everyone’s reading!