Highly anticipating our dialectic classical journey through the Middle Ages, to learn the backstory to the themes of knights, chivalry, kings, and castles, we entered the time portal through books.
While reliving adventures of King Arthur, Robin Hood, and Marco Polo, we also learned about St. Patrick, Charlemagne, the murder of Thomas A Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury.
Our imaginations soared with Sir Gawain, Beowulf, and Canterbury Tales.
Imaging ourselves in other lands, we learned of Camelot, the search for the Holy Grail, and the broken note of the Trumpeter of Krakow.
My personal absolute favorites were the tales of King Arthur and Robin Hood…all rooted in fact but surrounded by the mists of time, I fell in love with England.
And then, my heart stopped while reading the gripping story of the Newberry Award winning book, The Trumpeter of Krakow…
Even though I’m now an adult, for all the history texts I’ve read, I’ve previously been exposed to boring, pithy, opinionated books, even of the adult-sort.
While deep diving into original source documents, then reading children’s literature alongside, I’m finding that many children’s books (not all) are better written (very romantic, beguiling, fascinating, interesting), and more accurate.
Sometimes adult books fit that descriptor, but they are more difficult to find.
I found these books through a combination of umpteen different booklists, most of which are quite repetitive on the homeschool market, because there are only so many books out there.
Since I didn’t find a single curriculum booklist to be exactly what we needed/wanted, I simply edited and culled our own list.
I also regularly peruse the local used bookstore, where I often find treasures of yore not to be found in a modern bookstore.
Every once in a while, we use a better written picture book (loaded with details) that is more informative and accurate than any chapter book around.
I do have to admit, there are a couple of books I would not include on the dialectic go-round of the Middle Ages, because they were flat in the narrative, instead of using the masterful craft of a writing creatively using literary devices while telling the facts.
My least favorite books were Men of Iron and the history book on the Byzantine Era.
The Byzantine book is very dry…and now we’ve found Drive Thru History where Dave Stotts drives us through Turkey to tell the very same story in a far more interesting way.
My kids’ least favorite book was Marjorie Rowling’s Life in Medieval Times, which I have to admit, considering their extensive reading load, this book felt like an encyclopedia smacking them in the head.
Although I did like the information in it, moving forward I find it best for reference instead of dedicatedly reading every. single. page. My kids were already learning tons. No need to throw the anchor on them while they are trying to keep afloat.
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