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If we value the pursuit of knowledge, we must be free to follow wherever that search may lead us. ~ Adlai Stevenson

Saturday, May 31, 2014

Some Books for the Afternoon Basket, 2014-2015

Literature 
(the kids really wanted to focus on Tolkien, and influences on his writing, this year, so most of this list is reflective of that)
The Princess and the Goblin
The Marvelous Land of the Snergs
The Hobbit
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Beowulf: Dragonslayer (or perhaps Beowulf: A New Telling)
King Arthur stories, either this version or this 
The Story of Siegfried
The Questing Knights of the Faerie Queen

Time permitting we will read The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Kalevala: Tales of Magic & Adventure

Geography
We're going to finish The Complete Book of Marvels (2nd half, "The Orient"), and then perhaps another book by Halliburton, or a really good book on Marco Polo, or ???

History  
Interest led for the main part, though I may read a chapter aloud each week from A Little History of the World for general exposure.

Nature Studies & the Sciences
Swampwalker's Journal: A Wetlands Year... other nature-related titles to be determined
A Briefer History of Time... other titles to be determined, depending on time

Mathematics
We'll be reading String, Straightedge & Shadow and finishing The Man Who Counted this year

Shakespeare
Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare

Books for The Girl
For her reading work, I would like her to choose volumes from the Classic Starts series, then she may tackle the original Oz series
Together, I hope to read (some will be bedtime reading):
Dr. Dolittle's Puddleby Adventures
All Creatures Great and Small
My Life with the Chimpanzees
Hitty: Her First 100 Years
Gudgekin the Thistle Girl & Other Tales
The King of the Hummingbirds & Other Tales




Books for The Boy
Some assigned reading, some suggestions, and some I will read also so that we can discuss them. I'm assigning at least 6 or 7 of the following titles, so anything marked with a * is definitely on the to-be-read list, while others are still undecided. He's interested mainly in dystopian/Steampunk/sci-fi literature right now, so the following list keeps that in mind:
*The Phantom Tollbooth
*Lord of the Flies
Ender's Game
Watership Down
*Dodger
The Giver
*A Wrinkle in Time (plus others in the series as desired)
*The Time Machine
Animal Farm
War of the Worlds
The Westing Game

And maybe, as time/interest allows:
The Wizard of Quarks
Alice in Quantumland
Scrooge's Cryptic Carol

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Emerson

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