Booklist

Recommended Books

The following are books that NDCHEA members have read and would recommend to those who are interested in learning more about the listed topics. 

Booklists:

• A Reader's Guide: A Reading List and Plan for Classical Students and Parents -- www.ClassicalAcademicPress.com
• Gladys Hunt --  Honey for a Child's Heart (2002)

Brain Dominance:

• Cindy Gaddis -- The Right Side of Normal (2012)
• Jeffrey Freed and Laurie Parsons -- Right-brained Children in a Left-brained World (1998) 

Homeschooling Philosophies:

Charlotte Mason:

• Charlotte Mason -- Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschooling Series (free to download on many sites)
• Susan Schaeffer-Macaulay  -- For the Children's Sake  (2009) 
• Karen Andreola -- A Charlotte Mason Companion: Personal Reflections on the Gentle Art of Learning (1998)
• Catherine Levison -- A Charlotte Mason Education (2000)

Classical Education:

• Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise -- The Well Trained Mind (2009)
• Douglas Wilson -- Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning (1991)

 Relaxed Homeschooling:

• Mary Hood -- The Relaxed Home School (1994)
• Mary Hood -- The Joyful Home Schooler (1997)
• Raymond and Dorothy Moore -- Home Grown Kids (1984)
• Mary Pride -- School-proof (1988)

Homeschooling High School:

• Byers, David P. and Chandra -- College-Prep Homeschooling (2008).

Concerns about Public Schools:

• John Gatto -- The Underground History of American Education (2001)
• Bruce N. Short --  The Harsh Truth about Public Schools (2004)

High School Reading List:

          We are a classically educating family.  I feel that I have been waiting my entire homeschool career to begin high school.  It is a chance for me to discuss with my children, through literature, what we believe (and what others believe) about the nature of man, God, good, evil, truth, suffering, and many other topics.  We have just finished ninth grade, and I wanted to put out the booklist that we have used this year.  I will note that my first child is an excellent reader, and that my other children (and yours, too) may not read all of these books, but I thought it might be a good place for some of the blog viewers to start.  We are using the Omnibus curriculum published by Veritas Press to guide us through most of these books.

Year 1 (Grade 9)

• Books assigned to be read, with written assignments as well:

Ferry, David (Renderer into English verse) – Gilgamesh

Davies, W.W. – The Codes of Hammurabi and Moses

Homer -- The Odyssey

Aeschylus – Oresteia (Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides)

Sophocles – The Oedipus Cycle (Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone)

Plato – The Last Days of Socrates (Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo)

Virgil, The Aeneid

Livy – The Early History of Rome

Seutonius – The Twelve Caesars (I censored parts of this book.  Use your discretion)

Plato -- The Republic (Alas, this book we did not get through, but references to it pop up all over the place, so we will be reading it over the summer.)
Shakespeare -- Julius Caesar

• Books assigned to be read, but no written assignments:

Bullfinch, Thomas -- The Age of Fable

• Read alouds:  (Yes, I still read aloud with my high schooler)

Homer, The Iliad

Sutcliff, Rosemary -- The Eagle of the Ninth

 Year 2 (Grade 10)

• Books assigned to be read, with written assignments as well:

Augustine – Confessions
Greenfield, Stanley B. (translator) – Beowulf
The Song of Roland
Alighieri, Dante – Inferno
Alighieri, Dante – Purgatory
Alighieri, Dante – Paradise
Boethius, Anicius – The Consolation of Philosophy
Shakespeare, William – Macbeth, A Mid-summer Night’s Dream
Chaucer, Geoffrey – The Canterbury Tales (General Prologue, Knight’s Tale, Wife of Bath’s Tale, Clerk’s Tale, Pardoner’s Tale, Nun’s Priest’s Tale) *Please, please, please do not assign this book or any part of it without pre-reading it.  There are some base, inappropriate, and adult themes in it.
Machiavelli, Niccolo – The Prince
Erasmus, Desiderius – Praise of Folly
Spenser, Edmund – Fierce Wars and Faithful Loves (The Faerie Queene, Book I)
Moliere – Tartuffe (Translated into English verse by Richard Wilbur)

• Read alouds:

Plato – Republic
Cervantes -- Don Quixote (We just started this one, so will probably be reading it through the summer and into next year.)

Year 3 (Grade 11)

Milton, John -- Paradise Lost
Defoe, Daniel -- Robinson Crusoe
Swift, Jonathan -- Gulliver's Travels
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques -- The Social Contract
Irving, Washington -- The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Dickens, Charles -- Tale of Two Cities
Shelley, Mary -- Frankenstein
McPherson, James P. -- Battle Cry of Freedom (parts)
Stowe, Harriet Beecher -- Uncle Tom's Cabin
Crane, Stephen -- The Red Badge of Courage
Emerson, Ralph Waldo -- Self-Reliance
Thoreau, Henry David -- Civil Disobedience
Whitman, Walt -- Leaves of Grass
Melville, Herman -- Moby Dick
Poe, Edgar Allen -- "The Pit and the Pendulum" and other readings
Twain, Mark -- Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Stevenson, Robert Louis -- Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Year 4 (Grade 12) 
Wilde, Oscar -- Picture of Dorian Gray
Marx, Karl -- The Communist Manifesto
Remarque, Erich Maria -- All Quiet on the Western Front
Treaty of Versailles
Fitzgerald, F. Scott -- The Great Gatsby
Hemingway, Ernest -- The Old Man and the Sea
Tolkein, J.R.R. -- Lord of the Rings Triology
Hitler, Adolph -- Mein Kampf
Ambrose, Stephen E. -- Citizen Soldiers
Huxley, Aldous -- Brave New World
Orwell, George -- Animal Farm
Miller, Arthur -- Death of a Salesman
King, Martin Luther, Jr. -- Letter from a Birmingham Jail
Stolzhenitsyn, Alexander -- One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Lee, Harper -- To Kill a Mockingbird
Vieth, Gene Edward -- Postmodern Times
Assortment of 20th Century Short Stories