As usual we read a lot of great books for our Renaissance studies, many of which I sourced from my local used bookstore, Half-Price Books.
Not only getting these books at a bargain, but we also found more interesting information than many of the popular booklists provided of more newly published books.
This was also an effort to streamline a classical history curriculum that wasn’t working for us, for many reasons. Yet for other reasons I feared I wouldn’t be able to make it without some type of guideline, even though various problems we faced caused a lot of work on my part to completely rewrite every week. Then after all was done, there was still more editing I realized I could have done.
One thing I was consistently learning was that my kids were a lot like me as far as book preference goes.
Several of the popularly recommended books, though loved by many, were not for us.
Exceedingly pithy and jaunty and distracting, my kids complained. Please, they cried, no more Eyewitness Books, Usborne Books, or comic-style books like that Hamlet version at the bottom of the stack.
The “meh” books from this stack were: Courage and Conviction and Secret of the Andes.
As far as overload goes, apart from the above-listed books, would be Gift of Music. Although interesting enough on its own, it was more reading. I think more life would have come in if, during lunch, I just told the biography of the artist of the week, while playing the composer’s music.
There were obviously plenty of other books of quality writing that we were learning from.
Although others will have different opinions, we recognize that as self-governing. Each homeschooling tailoring its curricula according to their own needs is what makes each one successful and exciting to hear about! =)
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