CTC Storytime

[Mom4Him]

We are excited to start CTC in a month or so. I have both the History Interest Set and the Girl Interest Set, as we really loved reading books that went along with the history last year in Preparing, and yet I have five girls - so the girl interest set looked great for them!
I'm having a hard time deciding which set to use, as we won't have time for both! My girls who will be using CTC next year are a little sensitive, yet they handled all the books in Preparing just fine last year. Are there certain books that are more violent than others in the History set? Looking at the guide, it doesn't seem like the various books start/end at the same time, so it may be difficult to use some from the Girl set and others from the History set?
What are your thoughts?
Thank you!
Jessica

[Rachel]

We used CTC last year, and I chose to mix and match from the history and boys sets. I just took a more relaxed approach. Tried to choose which of the history set books I wanted to read to him, first. Then I counted up the weeks in between and tried to fit in a boys set book that was approximately that length. We didn't always start or finish exactly on schedule to fit the history books in perfectly, but we were still happy with it. Since we didn't read all of the history set (and I have a boy), I can't tell you about the violence level so much, except that Boy of the Pyramids, City, and Archimedes would be fine for your girls. My ds also enjoyed God King and I enjoyed it too, but it depends on how sensitive your girls are.

[my3sons]

We did the History Interest with CTC, and we really enjoyed them alongside the rest of the history! I felt like the History Interest set really complimented the books my ds read in his Reading about History part of the plans beautifully. I'd say "Traveling the Way" may be a tad hard for sensitive readers, but then again, that was in my top 2 favorites of the books. It gave excellent material for discussion and showed what it was really like to live through that difficult time. Cleon, an escaped slave, goes through some difficult things, but there is a happy ending that shows how God can work His plan for good even in the midst of the most seemingly impossible situations and in the most unlikely people. Maybe skim/preread that one. The rest were fine IMO, but then I guess I have all boys. Otherwise, I am certain the girl interest books would be a blast as well! BTW, I bought the boy interest set for our sons too. I find they read the boy interest ones anyway, where the history ones may not be read as easily if not enjoyed during school while studying the time period. Just my experience though! You'll know best!

In Christ,
Julie

[momtofive]

Agreeing with Julie! We too, enjoyed reading through the history interest set. Such good books! I'll be doing CTC this year with my more sensitive dd and I'm not worried at all how she'll handle them. Sometimes we come across things in books that are heavier issues and take a bit more time to sort through in our minds and hearts, but oftentimes it's such a valuable lesson learned through it. Our children unfortunately will have to come across tough issues in this fallen world we live in, and seeing them through the eyes of the characters in these wonderful books, helps them to be able to understand it better later. We have had some of the best heart to heart discussions over our HOD books, where I was able to share my heart on a particular topic that I don't know we would have had otherwise.

Long story short, it's something you need to pray on and decide if they will work okay with your dd's. Pre-reading is an excellent plan, because only you will know if that set will work okay for them (off the top of my head, Traveling the way, The Golden Bull, and maybe God King might merit a pre-read. If not, there's always the girl interest set full of great choices too!