When my children were younger we loved finding new books to read. It was often a big part of the discussions that we would have when we were visiting with other homeschoolers. It seemed we were all on the look-out for good books that we could read with our children and one of the resources many of us used to find new books was Joan Torkildson’s column in Home Education Magazine, So Many Books. Reading the column was like talking to a friend who shared why she or her kids loved a book.

Reading her columns again has been a walk down memory lane as I have checked to see if the books I’ve listed are still in print. I’ve listed some of them below along with links to her original column and some occasional snippets from her reviews. I hope your family enjoys each of her recommended books as much as we did!

I distinctly recall borrowing and reading Steven Kellog’s I Was Born About 10,000 Years Ago after reading Joan’s review in her July-August 1997 column. She wrote:

No one retells a tall tale with more panache than Steven Kellogg. In this one, which was adapted from a nineteenth-century American folk song, multiple narrators boldly take credit for some of the most outrageous claims in history. One by one, they brag about having seen King Pharoah’s daughter fish Moses out of the water, of seeing Adam and Eve being banished from the Garden of Eden, of showing Columbus the way to the New World, of secretly marrying Queen Elizabeth in Milwaukee, even of playing hopscotch with spacemen on the moon (with plans to visit Saturn). All of these outlandish boasts are embellished with Kellogg’s own verse and typically exuberant illustrations.

In that same column she reviewed A Journey to the New World: The Diary of Remember Patience Whipplle, the first book in the Dear America Series, A Drop of Water: A Book of Science and Wonder, by Walter Wick and Lives of the Athletes: Thrills, Spills(and What the Neighbors Thought.)

In her January-February 1998 So Many Books column, Joan Torkildson reviewed:

• Cracked Corn and Snow Ice Cream A Family Almanac, by Nancy Willard
  Joan writes this about the book: Perfect for browsing during long, wintery afternoons (even if you don’t happen to live in the Midwest), the almanac is both an engrossing read and a poignant reminder of a quieter, less complicated time not so very long ago.
  
• I Wonder Why Trees Have Leaves and Other Questions About Plants (Kingfisher books by various authors)
  The books are an eclectic mix of bold, easy-to-read type, beautifully realistic illustrations, and humorous cartoon-like drawings. Questions range from the sensible (“Why do leaves change color in the fall?”) to the quirky (“Which bird sniffs all night?”).
  
• The Kingfisher Young People’s Atlas of the World
  Extensively indexed, the book also includes detailed charts of facts and figures for each continent.
  
• I Saw a Purple Cow by Ann Cole, Carolyn Haas, Faith Bushnell, and Betty Weinberger
  The emphasis here is on the simple and homemade, a feature that will no doubt be appreciated by budget-minded homeschooling families. Most of the activities in the book use recycled or common household items, such as cardboard boxes and tubes, egg cartons, newspapers and magazines, cans and jar lids, old clothes and jewelry, crayons, and watercolors. Have plenty of white glue and tape on hand.
  
• The Best of Shakespeare: Retellings of 10 Classic Plays E. Nesbit

In the So Many Books March-April 1997 Column, Joan wrote this about

• With Needle and Thread: A Book About Quilts , by Raymond Bial, With Needle and Thread would make a nice addition to a unit study on quiltmaking, or could simply add depth and background to a family quiltmaking project. Ambitious types might try researching a few of the hundreds of colorful names (Broken Dishes, Chinese Coins, Drunkard’s Path, Trip Around the World) to uncover more of the history of this gentle “art within.

In this column she also reviewed

• The Shelter of Each Other: Rebuilding Our Families
• Mapping a Changing World
• My Brother Sam Is Dead

Here is a list of other books that she recommended via her column:

• Pass the Peas Please
• Crinkleroot’s Nature Almanac
• Grandfather’s Christmas Tree
• Amelia Erhart, Young Air Pioneer

I’ve linked many of the books to sites where you can purchase them, whether brand-new or well-used, but don’t forget to see if you can borrow them from your local public library first!

Looking for a good book?

Over the years Home Education Magazine has consistently offered glimpses into the lives of homeschoolers via articles written by many and closer looks via one on one interviews. Here are a few of those interviews along with a few updated resources.

I recall reading and being deeply touched by Helen Hegener’s Conversation with Michelle Wilbert: Living life “Close to the Root” in the September-October 2004 of HEM. Michelle Wilbert is a midwife, homeschooler and author of Close to the Root: A Handbook of Simple, Sustainable and Earthy Alternatives for Family and Community Life.

As I said earlier, I think that I started out thinking about the potential for cultural transformation that I found in these ideas. Early thinking about homeschooling and midwifery were located within a value system that was home and community centered, democratically oriented, staunchly independent of any ideas of government or public involvement or oversight and really wedded to concerns about changing society for the better and that was true whether people were Christian homeschoolers, hippies or eclectics. They might have had different societal goals in mind, but changing the world was definitely part of the package.

In addition to Conversation with Michelle Wilbert: Living life “Close to the Root” you can read more about and from Michelle Wilbert here:

• Kneelingwoman ~ Thinking, Living and Writing “Out of the Box
• Close to the Root Family and Community Resources

In An Interview with Cafi Cohen by Marsha Ransom we were given a glimpse into the Cohen household. Cafi wrote:

Jeff adds that he would never trade his homeschooling years for high school. He has commented more than once that he never would have been admitted to the Air Force Academy if he had not homeschooled. He feels homeschooling allowed him time to get a private pilot’s license, to act as commander of his Civil Air Patrol squadron and edit their newsletter, to practice piano, to teach piano, to participate on a world-class diving team, and much more. Eventually, it was all those activities (and close to 30 units of college classes taken concurrently with high school homeschooling) that he feels got him admitted.

My daughter Tamara now says, “I wouldn’t change anything about my homeschooling. Despite our easy-going approach, I have attended four different colleges in three different states and encountered nothing academic that I could not handle.” She adds that she loved the flexibility of homeschooling, graduating “early” and earning money to travel on a student-exchange program to Australia when she was 16.

Here are a few more interviews for your enjoyment:

• Interview with Deborah Stevenson - Judy Aron
• Interview with Linda Dobson - Helen Hegener
• Interview with Mary Griffith - Helen Hegener
• Interview with Patrick Farenga - Helen Hegener
• An Interview Leila Giles and Celeste Land – Mary Nix
• An Interview with John Munson – Mary Nix

There are many more interviews and articles from past issues that offer glimpses into homeschool lives, and you can access them via the HEM Archives. To avoid missing any future issues and interviews, you can subscribe to HEM here.

Glimpses into homeschool lives