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An interesting, thought provoking, blog article for banned books week.

I confess that both books mentioned are/have been on our reading lists (most banned books are). For our family, the solution is to be widely read with plenty of informal discussion about historical context and biases in books. Author studies really help with this since you learn about the society/context within which the author is writing their stories. I think the problem comes in when you read only the biased books and nothing to counterbalance them. This is one reason I include plenty of modern literature with our (more typical CM) classic readings. We sometimes read both the original and the revised versions and discuss the reasons for the changes. For every biased book you can usually find another book to counterbalance it. I rarely cut or ban my kids from reading biased books but I often add books to balance out their readings. As I've mentioned in past writings, when my daughter was interested in Little House and the Prairie (mentioned in this article's comments) we also read the Birchbark House books as a way of balancing the racial biases. 

Would love to hear your thoughts on the topic!

I came across this site as I was researching online books (Drakon needed a copy of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ASAP). Wow, it has tons of links! An almost overwhelming number of them! Many are typical PBS type stuff but others are real gems. Think I will bookmark this site for my kids to explore when they are bored over summer. javascript:mox();  (don't know why the link came out funny but it should still work)

If you scroll all the way to the bottom there is a section called "By Kids For Kids" that looks interesting for those of us with writers. The section on "Creating and Reviewing Online Books" also looks pretty interesting.

If you are stuck at a family gathering or in a motel room during summer vacations this site could keep the kids occupied for hours.

This idea is courtesy of my son.  

At some point in the last year I handed him a couple of lists of Great Books that I had been given. I told him for his free reading he really should chose some books from these lists along with his usual reading faire. He was amendable but when he saw the lists he drew a complete blank. At first I couldn't understand his blankness. Then, just as I began to realize what the problem was he started to explain that the lists alone were meaningless to him. While he had heard of some of those books/ authors there were just too many that he knew nothing about. How was he suppose to tell which ones were most likely to be interesting? Yes, a list with just the book titles and author's names is rather meaningless since the students do not have an adult's experience with such lists. Luckily, the Dover literature and humanities catalog came that very day. My sonwas looking through the catalog when he had a brilliant idea. Since the catalog include pictures and/or brief descriptions of many of the same books he would just choose his free reading from the catalog rather than the lists. Brilliant! You could do this with many other catalogs or bookstore fliers as long as the books they feature are of the quality you want your child reading. 

Yep, seeing those lists today and then getting the Dover Spring Sale email reminder reminded me of this idea from earlier in the year.

Yes, KodyGirl has proven Ms. Mason right once again!

I've been in the process of revamping our homeschooling and have been thinking about what has and has not worked within the area of nature studies; esp. since one of my kids is considering being a forester or a naturalist as a career option. As I was thinking about this and remembering some recent nature identification based discussions with my youngest I realized that most of what she remembers she learned........in story form. She will proudly identify a Douglas Fir pine cone and when asked how she knows what it is she will give a brief synapsis of the Native American story she was told in regards to identifying this particular pine cone. She does the same thing with star identification. She remembers the story along with the facts. Whenever she and I discuss medicinal herbs, which is fairly often, she will tell me about how that plant is used in the Warriors books. She is even planning a garden based on the plants used in the Warrior books. Now she has done plenty of other types of nature and life science studies but she rarely refers back to those experiences at all....unless there was some sort of living book or story telling involved.

I am going to have to remember this as we move away from the more formal resources we had been using in the past. I need to get more comfortable storytelling and find even more living books. Thank goodness there are plenty of stories in Keepers of the Earth...I'm going to need them with this child.