Classical Conversations discussion

Thoughts, comments, or questions about Chapter 4.

How do you pick good books to keep around your children? Do you look for specific award winners, use a master list, etc.?

Sara-
I use Honey for a Child's Heart and another book. Sonlight lists are great as well. Amble side online, memorial press...those are my resources.
I think Brandy pulls from some of those resources for her cycle lists.

Here are places where I find good books (and I also use Honey for a Child's Heart and look for Caldecott and Newbery award winners - visit orange marmalade at http://orangemarmaladebooks.com - when making our personal book selections):

Our reading selections are taken from many other sources, including (but not limited to) suggested resources from Sonlight, Tapestry of Grace, Veritas Press, and Classical Conversations, as well as the 1000 Good Books List, Gospel Coalition, Old-Fashioned Education, IEW's Books for Boys and Other Children Who Would Rather Build Forts All Day, and Ambleside Online. (I have a ream-of-paper I reference along with an assortment of catalogs - and my trusted friend Tina over at Chasin Raisins - when I make my booklists.)

Links to some of the above-referenced lists:
http://classical-homeschooling.org/ce...
http://iew.com/sites/default/files/vi...
http://www.amblesideonline.org/
http://chasinraisins.blogspot.com/p/b...
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/j...
http://www.oldfashionededucation.com/...

In regards to booklists - we listen to twice as many books as we read. I could not tell you the last time I listened to the radio in the car - we have a book going at all times. It has allowed us to cover so many more excellent books than if we snuggled on our couch and read them. With active kids, it has allowed us to expand our homeschool to "carschool" :)

I'd add Beautiful Feet Books to that list- and they are lovely, artistic, classic, wonderful - historical book are amazing and the publisher has taken the time to add information about the authors and artists, and even added interesting historical facts that liven the stories even more. There is a wonderful bunch of books that coincides beautifully each Cycle in CC, too.

A simple way to always be reading a good book is to always be reading one by C.S. Lewis. There are other good authors; I'm not some sort of Lewisian purist, but if you are reading him, you are being nourished in your mind, heart, and soul--every sentence, every page. Since the Narnia books are his only ones geared toward children, simply start the series over when you finish until your kids are in high school. Then the doors open wide to a lifetime of reading Lewis. The Space Trilogy is much more mature in prose and content, which will lend itself to dialectic conversation with your budding dialecticians and burgeoning rhetoricians. Then, you have all Lewis' nonfiction works to read and a couple more fiction works for the rest of your life. We old folks can make headway against the tide of irrationality that pervades our culture, and our kids can be spared an inability to think by continually drinking deeply from the redolent fountain that is C.S. Lewis.

Has anyone here caught wind of the name of the bible series Leigh references in this chapter? And if not, has anyone heard of something similar?

From page 104: "We own an out-of-print, multivolume series that has broken the Bible into many sections. Each chapter includes the King James version of scripture accompanied by famous artwork, poetry, and stories interwoven in appropriate places. Each chapter includes maps or photos of the geography mentioned along with images of related archaeological artifacts. There are also annotations for historical context."