Isn't it nice for our homeschoolers to have books featuring stories about learning outside the classroom setting and featuring homeschooling characters? I'm always glad to discover a story that doesn't present a child's world as revolving around school.
In the past couple of days, I've wandered across two resources recommending books for homeschoolers: HomeschoolLiterature.com and The National Homeschool Book Award.
Homeschool Literature Book Recommendations
The HomeschoolLiterature.com folks read and review short stories, picture books, and novels that relate to homeschooling, giving parents and children the chance to find books that talk about situations they can relate to. You'll find scores of books on this website. The two newest featured books are
- Fractured Fate by Caja Coyote, about five Arizona teens, finding themselves in the middle of worldwide cataclysms, earth-controlling Joe rounds up super-strong Grace, information-absorbing Natalie, weather-making Valencia, and fire-starting Drake.
- The Howling Vowels by Leslie Schultz, following middle-grade Alexa through her transition year from NYC to small-town living in Minnesota.
National Homeschool Book Award Recommendations
The National Homeschool Book Award (NHBA) is a readers' choice book award recognizing juvenile fiction that explores learning experiences outside the traditional classroom setting and that resonates with homeschool readers.
- The 2011 winner: Every Soul A Star by Wendy Mass, about three young teens who witness a total solar eclipse and are changed forever.
- This year's nominees: The Candymakers by Wendy Mass, about four unique kids brought together at the Life Is Sweet candy factory to compete in making a delicious new candy.
- Selling Hope by Kristin O'Donnell Tubb, about a young girl traveling the small-time vaudeville circuit with her Walt Whitman-quoting illusionist father, who uses their show to help "educate the masses."
- My Name is Mina by David Almond, about a charming and imaginative homeschooled girl living in the U.K. who is dealing with the death of her father and adjusting to a new life at home alone with her mother.
- Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick
My Family's Book Recommendations
Presently my daughters and I are enjoying R.L. La Fevers story series about Theodosia, an 11-year-old Egyptologist in Edwardian England. Sans school or governess, she uses museum resources to research ancient lore, along with her unique natural talents and new friends, to make the world a safer place.
More books on my family's list of books to read, featuring children leading exciting lives:
- The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jaqueline Kelly
- The Homeschool Liberation League by Lucy Frank
- Surviving the Applewhites by Stephanie S. Tolan
A visit to any of the websites above will give you plenty of books for your own homeschool reading list. Your kids can find stories they can relate to, stories that will stick with them the way the best stories do.
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Sara McGrath - Sara is a veteran homeschool mom of three, Usborne consultant, and the author of Unschooling: A Lifestyle of Learning.
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