Question on a couple of the extension books from Bigger

[Nealewill]

My youngest is doing Bigger this year and she is always begging to read more books. I currently have her read all of the science to herself. She reads the history 50/50 to herself. I do also let her read some of the story time to herself but I try and limit that. I find it difficult to do the activities with story time if I don't read it myself because most of the story time activities are at the beginning, before reading. I have read more than half of the extension books thus far with my son last year for his story time - I did this if I could match the book up with a genre. And we have read a few a few of the titles at bed time. But I have not read The New Americas, Freedom Train, Once on this Island, or Esperenza Rising. The rest, I have read through. Is there anything I need to be concerned about giving these to my youngest to read? She is 7 but will be 8 in February. She is also a 3rd child and things don't tend to phase her like my oldest or middle child. She loves to read and I am having a hard time with coming up with enough books for her. HOD does such wonderful job selection books and she has read several of the DITHOR books already. Honestly, I just don't feel like pre-reading them and was looking for some input. Plus, she gets done with school so fast compared with the others, which leads to her getting kind of bored....and then starts looking for books LOL. This would give her something to do without me having to direct it. Thanks in advance.

[Hope]

I used Esperenza & Freedom Train with another curriculum.

I pre-read Esperenza. I had my oldest wait until 10 to read it after pre-reading it. I know what you mean though about 3rd borns. My third born couldn't have handled it emotionally at 7, but could now at 8 1/2. The beginning is quite sad with the death of a beloved father. The daughter is very loved & spoiled on a Mexico estate. After her father's death she and her mother lose everything and move to the USA as immigrant farm workers. It is a very powerful story.

Freedom Train my oldest read without me. He did fine at 10, but I should have pre-read it for discussion. I realized later it has slave whipping in it, and I believe it includes children. My 8 1/2 third born still couldn't do well with this one most likely.

I hope that is helpful.

[bethelmommy]

I do let my 9 1/2 year old read the extensions freely, but have been more selective with my almost 8 year old. For extra free reading books, I let them read DITHOR books. For example, last year my son free read all the 4/5 girl interest selections and then did the 4/5 boy interest books for DITHOR. This year he will do the same with the 5/6 books. For my almost 8 year old, she free read the Level 3 books this past year and will do DITHOR 4/5 girl selections as assigned this year, but will be allowed to free read the 4/5 boy selections. If your daughter is interested in the extensions, they are probably fine. However, I know there have been a few my daughter is just not interested in due to her maturity level even though she is a voracious and advanced reader. HTH.

[Nealewill]

Thanks for the heads up about both books. My dd will be 8 (I think) by the time she gets to both of these books but I do think the whipping of a slave (especially if it is a child) will be startling. I will pre-read this and see if I can cut that part of the story or if there is just too much to handle in general. As for Esperenza Rising, I will read the beginning as well. I enrolled my dd in 2 outside book clubs recently and she just read one of the American Girl books over the weekend. In it, an 8 year old child died of Cholera. Josie came out of her room crying because she was so sad that this little girl had died. We had a great discussion after that about families and how kids didn't always live to be adults. Plus, we talked about how people in general didn't live as long. It went along very nicely with our science text Science in Colonial America. We then ended our discussion with a prayer thanking God for modern medicine. So, I say all this to say that I don't know what she will think if an adult dies (even though it is a parent) vs a child.

And yes, she has actually read several of the Girl 4/5 books. But she is somewhat sensitive to the size of the print. That is really the only reason I read 50% of the history to her. She can read it and read it well but she said the print is too small LOL. I flipped back through the extensions and the print is a larger font. She did read Fanny Crosby, Riding Freedom, Pheobe the Spy, The Doll People and The Children's Book of Virtues. She loved those. I could definitely give her Naya Nuki still to read and probably the Captive Princess. From the boy pack, I could give her Toothpaste Millionaire, the Scripture Slueth books (we love these!), and Buffalo Bill. We have all the book packs up through 5/6 here and I could definitely find a few more books in those packs easily once she isn't sensitive to the font size. I have also gone through and found several books from the same author as many of the books that she has already read. For example, Louis Braille, Pochantas and the Strangers, Freedom Crossing, Freedom Train, and Helen Keller are the scholastic biography series. She loves those! We have bought several others. She also loves reading the Young Patriot Series (John Audubon, Amelia Earhart, Alexander Hamilton, and Phillis Wheatley) and I have thought about getting a few more from that. She also really likes the series childhood of Famous Americans (Thomas Edison and Buffalo Bill) and I have thought about getting her a few more of these too. Three years ago I read all of the Little House in the Prairie books to my kids at bed time and I think Josie may enjoy read those alone. And, last year, I bought her several more of the Burgess Books when she did Little Hearts (she did Beyond at 5 and then Little at 6). We also have the $5 book list from HOD and I have purchased several of those books too. My book budget is out of control LOL! But it seems like my library doesn't cover many Christian books unfortunately. They have ton of fluff on the shelves and a lot of the common titles (like the Magic Tree House) and few other series. But I find that a lot of those books are very formulaic and get boring somewhat quickly. Plus, it seems like my dd really likes non-fiction types of books or historical fiction and that is where I feel like my library is failing her for the moment. Thankfully I can get many of these books used on Amazon paying only a penny or so and just pay $3.99 shipping on them. They aren't always in the best of shape when I get them but I try hard to keep my book budget under $30 a month.

[bethelmommy]

Hmm... I can give you a few book suggestions my daughter has read lately, though her taste tends to run more to fantasy and she doesn't mind small print- Watership Down, Black Beauty, Heidi, the Felicity and Kaya American girl series, Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit, Redwall series, Ranger's Apprentice series, Imagination Station books (the Christian version of Magic Tree House) are somewhat historical and have decent sized print...I hope this gives you some ideas. I know it is difficult to find decent, age appropriate books. Carrie's selections are awesome, but with avid readers they only go so far . Some of the fantasy ones I would have preferred to not let my daughter read quite yet. However, her older brother read them and they love to discuss books together and play "imaginary" based on the books they have read. I hope you are able to find some good selections.

[Nealewill]

Thank so much for the ideas. She does like fantasy books too And I will have to look up Imagination Station. I have heard a lot about them but we have never read them.