Reading Lists

The following lists are what I hope to read as part of my Education of Me project. The books coincide with our history studies and most of them are books I hope to have her read at a later date. I have put my thoughts about them in parenthesis.

Late Renaissance/Early Modern Literature (10-11)

• Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
• The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Other Poems by Samuel Coleridge
• The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
• Grimm's Fairy Tales
• Benjamin Franklin: The Autobiography and Other Writings
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (currently reading)
  
• Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, and American Slave, Written by Himself
• The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
  
• The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
  

Medieval/Early Renaissance Literature (09-10):

• Stories from Beowulf by HE Marshall (DONE, very enjoyable retelling, definitely will use for her next rotation)
• The Song of Roland by Charles Scott Moncrieff (DONE, The full version was a bit hard to understand since I'm lacking the background knowledge, so I switched to reading Stories of Roland by HE Marshall-this is a very readable version and I think that we will use this or Sons of Charlemagne for her next go around and save the real Song of Roland for high school)
• Otto of the Silver Hand by Howard Pyle (DONE, This book was wonderful! It was full of insights into what life was like during medieval times. It's definitely on our list for the next go around.)
• Stories from Dante by Mary McGregor (DONE, I thought this was a very well written adaptation of Dante's Allegory. However, it's a bit young for logic stage, so we are going to use it as a read aloud for this year.)
• Piers Plowman by William Langland (DONE, I really enjoyed this poem/allegory. I'm sure that we will read the full version for high school, but I'm considering reading excerpts for the logic stage. As a side note, there is a fair amount of Latin in this, most of it was translated in my version, but some was not. I'm thinking that I might use portions of it as we get further into our Latin studies.)
• Tales from King Arthur by Andrew Lang (DONE, I had a hard time getting into this, so I'm not sure if I'll use the one for her, I'll probably look at Rosemary Sutcliff's version)
• The Chaucer Storybook by Eva March Tappan (DONE, I enjoyed reading this. We are going to use it for our next rotation, although I think that you could easily use it as a read-aloud for your first run through.)
• MacBeth by William Shakespeare (DONE, I love Shakespeare and this play was no different. It's a bit dark, so we may save it for high school.)
• The Travels of Marco Polo by Marco Polo (Ran out of time for this one, hopefully I'll be able to read it over a break because it looks very interesting)
• Gulliver's Travels by Johnathan Swift (Read half before I decided that this will definitely be waiting for high school. I don't remember it being so dark and quite frankly I found it a bit boring. I'll continue to try to finish it, but we'll see...)

Ancient History Literature List (08-09):

• History of the Ancient World by Susan Wise Bauer (Read Half before it had to go back to the library!, what I saw I loved and we may use this as a spine in high school)
• Gilgamesh the Hero by Geraldine McCaughrean (DONE, good retelling, will probably use with for her next rotation)
• The Pharaoh's of Ancient Egypt by Elizabeth Payne (DONE, good book, full of information, will use for her next rotation)
• Mara Daughter of the Nile by Eloise McGraw (DONE, wonderful book!!! will use for her next rotation)
• Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (DONE, interesting read, but definitely for high school, maybe not as it has a fair amount of adult content)
• The Iliad by Homer (Read The Iliad by Nick McCarty (children's version) first, then read half of the real version, not sure that I'm going to finish it this rotation; as for her next rotation she'll read Black Ships before Troy by Rosemary Sutcliff)
• The Sayings of Confucius translated by Lionel Giles (DONE, quite an interesting read, may have her read portions of it for her next rotation)
• Antigone by Sophcles (DONE, I had no idea that Sophcles wrote plays and good ones at that!, I still may save it for high school for her though)
• Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare (DONE, Shakespeare does history well!, may use this for her next rotation if she's ready)
• The Aenid by Virgil (probably not going to make it to this one!, I'm going to make a point to pre-read In Search of a Homeland by Penelope Lively before her next rotation)