Secular Charlotte Mason

Hey all!  Sorry I've been away!  We're currently stranded without Internet at home, and since I don't have a laptop, that means i am pretty much cut off.  Fortunately, I found a back door that works for the moment, so I have a question for you.

We are now on "Unit 4", which is based around mesopotamian history and the very first farm villages growing into cities.  I have found a pretty decent amount of material but so far I am at a loss for a book or two or three.  In each chapter I try to include one or more fictional books written from the PoV of a child living in the era or at least living the lifestyle that would have been typical of the era.

For the paleolithic, we found Sheldra and Dar.  I was not able to turn up much for the neolithic, and I am not coming up with much for Mesopotamia.  Once we get to the Romans, we have Detectives in Togas and (as I remember) dozens of choices.  And once we hit the middle ages, there are any number of stories.

Does anyone have anything like that to recommend?  (I am open to suggestions for any era -- particularly Mesopotamia and Greece, at the moment, but this is a long term plan, so any era is great!)

Thanks everyone!

Misti,

How soon will you be starting Mesopotamia? I know I have some picture books that may fit your needs but I can't get to them at the moment. I, too, will be planning out our Mesopotamia studies once I get back from vacation. Can you wait that long or do you need them now?

Gina

Hey, Gina!  We started mesopotamia a few days ago, but we usually take about 3 months to cover a unit, so as much as six weeks would still be useful. 

Over the weekend, I was able to actually study with the guys and I found that while jack is pretty excited about the story style history books, he is seriously resisiting "history" because we were also including "reference" or "textbook" style books.  He hates them!  The problem is that the story style books we've found that cover anything before Egypt cover Mesopotamia very Biblically.  I'll be pulling DK, Useborn, and Kingfisher off our reading list for the time being, so I am expanding my request to any really CM style books that involve the era at all. 

Hello,  I ordered Gilgamesh the King retold and illustrated by Ludmila Zeman and I'm glad to have it (after cringing at new prices - I'm cheap).   It's a truly beautiful book and the story is engaging.  I have chapter books on the "Ancients" that look interesting but honestly, I'm still trying to sort out what is included in Mesopotamia. LOL

Does Jack still like illustrated books then?  You said his reading level is quite high...  I need to organize my extra reads for history so I'll post what I'm looking forward to reading...but can't really give it a child's review until we finish it.

It sounds like you are past this part of history but these are what I have and would consider living books.  These are chapter books without too many illustrations.

All About Prehistoric Cave Men by Sam and Beryl Epstein (it's old but you can get it here)

Frozen Man by David Getz

The Story of the Ice Age by Rose Wyler and Gerald Ames

Junior Science Book of Icebergs and Glaciers by Patricia Lauber

This one might be a bit mature for my 6 yo but I think it's a beautiful and interesting book. 

The Roman Colosseum by Elizabeth Mann

For Greek studies, I can't wait to read D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths by Ingri and Edgar D'Aulaire

I need more books for Mesopotamia too, I hope you get some good suggestions.

Hi, Chai Mama!

What I have so far, since you're looking, too, is:

Books

The art and architecture of Mesopotamia / Giovanni Curatola ... [et al.] ;

Fiction:

The epic of Gilgamesh / retold by Geraldine McCaughrean ; illustrated by David Parkins.

Cartoon History of the World #3

Theseus and the Minotaur

DK Exploring Ancient Mesopotamia

The Sumerians by Landau, Elaine

Learning Through History Magazine: Ancient Near East

Appleseeds magazine: Mesopotamia

Step into Mesopotamia

A Child’s History of the World: pages 20-24 (Very biblical...but the tone is appropriate)

Complete Book of World History: pages 28-43

The Kingfisher History Encyclopedia pages 9-25 (Very textbooky)

The DK History of the World pages 32-36 (Very textbooky)

The Useborn Encyclopedia of World History pages 104-113 (Very textbooky)

Children’s Reference to Ancient and Medieval history pages 7-10

What Your First Grader Needs to Know pages 122-125

History Pockets Ancient Civilizations pages 18-31

Ancient Egyptians and their neighbors 49-91, selected

Films

Ancient Mesopotamia Schlessinger Media

Time Life's Lost civilizations [videorecording] / Time- Life Video and Television

We have decided to cut those books I have marked as very textbooky.  My husband (the primary teacher) will read them so he can drop the inetresting bits into conversation, but Jack HATES reading them.  A lot of the others may end up being dropped, too, for the same reason.  Those are just the ones I've identified. 

We are including Sumeria, Babylon, and Assyria, plus anything else we turn up along the way.    We have a retelling of Gilgamesh (not as wonderful as yours it souns like, but I can't justify a second set. ) and one on Inanna, but I'd liek to turn up other stories from the time, maybe Marduk or something like that.

Oh yes, Jack LOVES illusterated books.  <grin>  I have used that to my advantage.  He had gotten so sick of the textbook style books that we had included for the first three units that he started to declare that he "hated history".  I knew it was the dry books we had included, so I started off mesopotamia by watching the Schlessinger film and then handing him the Cartoon History of the World...he was hooked.  He enjoys reading just about anything...though the really high level stuff, he can read convincingly, but has better comprehension if I read those to him. 

The Roman Colosseum sounds really god -- I'll have a look for that!  thanks!  (Yeah, I can't wait to read D'Aulaire -- I am even thinking about adding more Nordic studies just so we can study one more of theirs!    (Swedish is one of "our languages" anyway, and I would include a geography study using Nils, too.)

Thank you, Chai Mama!

It took me a while to find this thread again, I usually use the homepage. lol   Thank you for posting what you found/liked as we will be doing this time period this year too.

I found the following thread on WTM website and liked several of the books, my library has none of them of course, so they are in my Amazon cart.  I do have another library I can buy a card for so I might go up there for some of these.  I could list what I liked but I only got to preview them with the "see inside" on Amazon.

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=122334

I am fascinated with this book "Lugalbanda" by Kathy Henderson as the oldest story every written which predates the Epic of Gilgamesh.  I have most of the Gilgamesh book recommendations in my cart too particularly the McCaughrean and the other two Zeman books.  Very interesting.

Oh my goodness!  That post was an *excellent* help!  Thank you so mcuh, Chai Mama!  I can feel a history redesign coming on!    Please share what you really like as you explore more and I will do the same! (I'm afraid that after all the furlough time this year (I work in the auto industry and mine is the only paid job in the family) we are stuck with what I can get from the library for the time being...but I will be splurging on the really good stuff as soon as I can!

Updated to add that, while I don't know how good it is (mixed reviews on Amazon) The Golden Bull by Marjorie Cowley look slike the book I was looking for.  We adored her Dar and the Spear Thrower, so this is looking wonderful!  Thank you so much, Chai Mama!

Woah ... and Hittite Warrior by Joanne Williamson looks promising, too!

City of Rainbows looks good too but I couldn't "see inside" I've got it in the cart but I want to check some other sources first.  If I get my hands on it, I'll let you know. 

"You wouldn't want to be a Sumerian Slave" looks interesting too.  My library has others in the series so I'm going to check one out to see if I like the style/tone.  My son would probably like some yucky details. lol  

I'll come back to this after I check Powell's and local libraries too.  I only buy brand new if I have to...

Jack has a couple of the other "You wouldn't want to".  Very coarse boy humour.  Not for a child of delicate sensibilities.  Jack, of course, loves them. 

I rarely buy new ... I check Amazon for sellers in my state.  It's not as cheap, but I use the wish lists so extensively that I see buying from Amazon as a kind of "pay for service". 

The "Gilgamesh the King" trilogy by Ludmila Zeman is a nice picture book set for the younger crowd, a bit less text than the McCaughrean books.  I'm a fan, too, of the "____ Age News" series written by Fiona MacDonald, as well.  I'm not sure she has anything that goes back quite that far, but it's worth looking for.

You should be aware that Bethlehem Press is a very Catholic publishing house; I've used their materials a lot, but occasionally you may run across something that twangs if you're not Catholic yourself.

Just wanted to update to let you know that we found The Golden Bull by Marjorie Cowley at the library, and it has been simply amazing!  The story is pretty compelling, and somehow managed to be risch with details without having the Tolkein effect! Everything we are learning as we study Mesopotamia seems to be in there, and Jack constantly says "Like Jomar wears" or "like Zifa cooked", snd so on. 

Wanted to add that I went to order Hittite Warrior...and after re-reading the reviews, I just can't do it.  According to the reviews, it's a fabulour book, right up to the last few chapters.  However, at the end, the protagonist -- against everything that makes sense in the cointext of the story -- turns his back on his friends and goes to the Isrealites and coverts to Christianity.  *sigh*

I wish Mrs Cowley was a faster writer! 

Luckily my kids were older when we read Hittite Warrior. They also didn't like the ending so I encouraged them to rewrite the ending as they thought better suited the character. I think Drakon actually wrote his up and Tide just did hers verbally. It is one of the reading options for KodyGirl this year but I don't know if she'll chose this particular book. I'm going to have to look for that Crowley author since KodyGirl would probably like her too.

yes, I highly recommend Crowly -- both of her books that we've read (she has three so far) have been very compelling to jack.

Yeah, I will probably let jACK read HW when he's older, but at six they have such a black and white view of the world that it doesn't seem wise.  Even Robinson Crusoe, Swiss Family Robinson, and Heidi have posed some questions for him, and that was just assumptions rather than conversion froma  religion "like ours" to Christianity.