This is part of Diane’s Literature Course II Series We’ve finished The Odyssey and my girls enjoyed it. I’m happy to have helped each of them complete her first time through. Now that they are familiar with the characters and events, something deeper can be gleaned from each successive reading. Is it too optimistic to hope…
Author: Diane Pendergraft
A Daughter of the Land
If you love Gene Stratton-Porter’s Freckles or A Girl of the Limberlost, I won’t guarantee that you’ll love A Daughter of the Land. As I read through it recently, I kept changing my mind about whether or not the author herself liked her main character, Kate Bates. In one instance Stratton-Porter would seem to want…
Sighs, Tears, and Faith
The last writing assignment for our American Literature Course, came after our previously unplanned reading of Ben Hur. Throughout the story, we often discussed the role of Esther. The poor girl! What was she doing all the time as she served her father and waited to see what would become of Ben Hur? Therefore,…
Literature Course II
Last year I had the privilege of teaching a literature class for four high school-aged homeschooled girls. I explained my goals and best attempt at planning the school year here. We get to do it again! This year two of my girls are seniors. My thought as I considered selections was to attempt to…
Life on the Mississippi
This part of Diane’s Literature Course I Series I didn’t get time to read Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi before I had to decide on my Literature Course I syllabus this past school year. I did get through the first couple of chapters, which are full of the geography and history of the Mississippi River….
I’d Know You Anywhere
I’d Know You Anywhere, My Love by Nancy Tillman There are things about you quite unlike any other . . . Things always known by your father or mother. So if you decide to be different one day, No worries . . . I’d know you anyway. The things people throw away! I picked up…
Having Our Senses Trained
“About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives…
Amos and Boris
I enjoyed William Steig’s Sylvester and the Magic Pebble years ago, but not so much that I set out to find everything Steig had written. More recently, I read Dr. De Soto and didn’t love it. I also remember feeling that the cover of The Amazing Bone is a bit creepy; flashbacks to childhood nightmares…
Beauty
Beauty Robin McKinley This will be a summer of reading, rereading, makings lists, and mercilessly shortening them as I plan literature courses for the coming fall. Over the years, I have seen Beauty, by Robin McKinley, on so many lists of good books that I thought it was high time I read it. I believe…
The Jumping Off Place
The Jumping-Off Place Marian Hurd McNeely I recently happened upon two Newbery Honor Books that caught my attention; The Jumping-Off Place, which won the Honor in 1930, and Doris Gates’ Blue Willow, a 1941 winner. I picked up The Jumping-Off Place because I assumed, from the title, that it must have something to do with…
Blue Willow
Blue Willow by Doris Gates was a 1941 Newbery Honor Book. Between 1930 and 1940, Gates worked as a children’s librarian in Fresno, California, where she became familiar with many children of migrant workers during the Great Depression. One notable aspect of this book is that it is considered to be, if not the first,…
Leepike Ridge
“What poetry does is represent nature. That can be handy because nature is big and changing and various and hard to look at. Whereas with somebody with a great eye and a big soul, they could explain it to you.” I heard Dr. Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, say this in a lecture shortly…
My Ántonia
This is part of Diane’s Literature Course I Series My Ántonia By Willa Cather My girls have kept up an admirable pace this year. My Ántonia is the last book in their Literature Course I syllabus. Though I had some titles in reserve for just-in-case, I hadn’t dreamed we’d get through the list with two months…
A Fly Went By
A Fly Went ByBy Mike McClintockIllustrated by Fritz Siebel A Fly Went By is another old (1958) favorite picture book in the “I Can Read It All By Myself” series. I loved reading it all by myself when I was learning to read. My kids loved it, and now I’m using it with my students…
Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?
When I found this book, I had previously considered myself well-versed in Dr. Seuss. I had never even heard of this one before. The copy I bought at a library book sale was already tattered, so I assumed someone must have loved it. Because it was fun for me to read, my small son loved…