To Textbook or Not to Textbook...

That is the question.

The Boy seems to be heading toward the land of textbooks, a place we have only rarely visited over the past eight years (with the general exception of math).

This is the textbook he is all starry-eyed over...

After that, he wants another one by the same [primary] author...

I am not sure what to make of this (and yes, I'm halfway joking here)! I feel that we have reached a crossroads, a divergence, with one child still in Charlotte Mason land and the other slowly moving down a different path.

Since a great part of the reason we homeschool is so that our children can find their own paths, follow their hearts and their interests, then we need to allow them to do just that.

Of course, it isn't all about the textbooks... that's just a "symptom" of something deeper, and that is that my boy is growing up. He'll be thirteen next month, and in high school in another year. He dreams of learning about physics in college, so to him this is laying the groundwork for that. And he still reads living books too, such as these (on his current agenda, & mine because they just look fun!):

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Do you think a Charlotte Mason type education could work for someone who wants to pursue physics in college, or are textbooks a necessity at this point? Thankfully I can get a used copy of the textbook he wants pretty cheaply,  so it won't be too much of an investment if it doesn't work out. But then, he's always enjoyed reading things like encyclopedias, so a textbook may be just his cup of tea!

I'll still take suggestions though, for living books on earth science and chemistry, as enrichments to the textbook!