heartofdakota.com

Hi everyone! It's been quite a while since I've visited here. I am not currently using HOD, though I plan to in another year or so with my 2.5 yo. I was hoping it would still be okay to pose a question here. I have had great experiences with the godly advice given here and I know of no other christian message board that I could go to. So, here's my question (and if it's not appropriate Carrie, please let me know and feel free to delete):

How do you choose books for your children to read outside of school? I am struggling with allowing my children choose their own books for reading pleasure because I don't know the content. I own the book list HOD sells.....do you just allow them to choose from that list? Or do you have another method you use? I want them to be reading uplifting, non-violent books and I'm just not sure how to be sure of that without reading them myself. Any suggestions would be so appreciated. Thank you!

Oh, and if anyone has anything to say about the Warrior Cat or Seekers series by Erin Hunter, please give me your opinions!

Kids books take like 30 min max for me to read, so I can and will preview books for my kids.

I let my kids pick from any books in the Library, but before they get checked out Mom gives them a once over.
If I'm not sure about it from a quick look through, I check it out and read it first, if it's inappropriate back it goes, if its ok, It goes on the "library" shelf for them to read.

I also find all the books I read as a child Lad A Dog (he's got a series) Pippy Longstocking anything not horror written by Lousia May Allcott. She has plenty of books besides the "little" series My kids love 8 Cousins, The box Car Children Series (early numbers).


Some books that scare my kids don't come home like goose bumps, and nothing by Phillip Pullman will be welcome. My child begged and begged for Wimpy Kid books, so I used it at bed time story book... half way though it My kids were bored to tears, Mom its the same old same old, hes so stupid why doesn't he... Mom I don't like this book, can we read something else.

Give them literature to read and they won't be able to tolerate twaddle.

I like to check in with Honey For A Child's Heart for ideas. Lamplighter publishing has quality books (though many are "heavy" and may not be for the more sensitive). I also like to check out some of the CM and Classical booklists that can be found online. For your older kids I'd just skim the book if you don't want to read the whole thing (and check book reviews online at sites like Amazon and you can get a feel for whether a book would be appropriate). The books on the HOD booklist would be a great way to choose, as long as you are choosing for the right age range the books have been throughly vetted as quality literature that is also wholesome.

I choose books from Carrie's Sample Book List and any of the others that she includes in the programs that I know we won't read otherwise like extension books or alternate books in the story time selections in Beyond and Bigger. Since there are many choices given there, we weren't able to read them all at the time so they make great free time books later. There are also more choices for DITHR than what we can read for DITHR so we use those. For instance my dd likes to read some of the boy choices and my ds has enjoyed some of the girl choices.

I also look for other "classics". I found some of the classics rewritten more simply and my dc have read a few of those classic start books. I debated about doing this, but I think I read that CM felt this was ok because it would introduce the story to the dc so that later when they read the full classic, they would be familiar with the story. So far my dc have read a couple of these and really liked them. My dd has wanted me to get the real version of Little Women for her to read after reading the classic start version. I did scan through these classic start books before letting them read them though since even a classic can have questionable topics or words occasionally. I also look for Newberry Award winners, but again these I have to review for content and wording before I let them read them.

I haven't read the Warriors series, but I have been wanting to read one to see what they are like since I like cats and a friend's daughter recommended the series to me. I did get the first book in the Seekers series and I just recently pre-read part of it. It was interesting and kept me going, but I really didn't like the layout of the book. It follows the story of 3 bears and each chapter talks about one of the three bears then it is another 3 chapters before that bear's story continues. I didn't like not knowing what happened to the bear in chapter 1 so I ended up reading all through the book reading every third chapter so I could find out the story of the polar bear. I was disappointed that the polar bear's story wasn't resolved by the end of the book, and she never interacted with the other 2 bears that are in the book. I felt like it should have been 3 books instead of one. I'm thinking that the next books in the series will continue the stories of the 3 bears in the same way. I would have much rather that she had a complete book about each bear instead of dragging all of their stories out over several books. I was so disappointed by it that I haven't been motivated to read the stories of the other 2 bears. Anyway that is more about the book than you were wanting to know. I didn't see anything really questionable in the book. The language was fine. It did reference spirits of the dead bears and had a bit of a supernatural tone that could be questionable for some people. I didn't feel it was overtly bad. It was more along the lines of what you would expect to find when reading about some of the Native American ideas. You might want to pre-read it to see how you feel about it. Overall I thought the book was twaddle and not something that would feed my dc's minds even though they might think it a fun read. It has made me less anxious to check out the Warrior series.

One other way I sometimes find books for my dc is by looking at some of the other books by authors of some of the great books that Carrie recommends. For instance we read Key to the Treasure during Beyond. We read Clue in the Woods in Bigger. I got to the rest of Peggy Parish's Bill, Jed, and Liza mystery series, and my dd has read them all. They are still waiting on my ds One still has to be careful when doing this because sometimes an author can have one series that is great and other books that aren't. So if I do this, I still at least skim the books to make sure they are acceptable.

As you can see I do a lot of reading. My dd loves reading so much that even with all of Carrie's recommendations I have to find more books for her to read. So I have a large stack of books usually that I'm trying to read to see if they are ok. I've been trying to enlist my dh to help, but so far he hasn't had the time. I really wish that Carrie would come out with another larger list, but I know that she is busy writing other guides. I can't imagine how much reading she has to do just to keep up with that!

This thread is so helpful...I have wondered about this myself and we just came back from the library with lots of books...she loves books on tape as well and had reserved more of grandmas attic...and some one kind of family from her book reading at the end of Beyond..I am always looking for good choices for her...and this has really helped...she is just really getting into wanting to read more or listen more to books....and I love having choices readily available for her.....Beth in Idaho