Getty-Dubay. Just plain awesome!

Classic adventures like Rider Haggard's books, Kipling, Conan Doyle, Verne? Prisoner of Zenda? The Man Who Was Thursday? The Riddle of the Sands? Lots of great adventures. China Miéville if he likes sci-fi? Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's flying stories? I adored Wind, Sand and Stars at that age. Three Men in a Boat? The Ascent of Rum Doodle? PG Wodehouse? If he likes humour.

Connie, you're the greatest! On the conceptual front, there's Lou Bloomfield's book (and website, too). (Sorry, I don't seem able to do links at WTM any more--doesn't like my browser? Not sure.) As a supplement, Yakov Perelman's Physics for Entertainment is quite entertaining. :laugh:

Gelfand?

I had another idea--Kaye Umansky is rather Dahl-esque, I would say (and prolific--bonus!). ETA: I'm thinking mainly of the Clover Twig books and the Solomon Snow books (Solomon has two female partners in adventure).

This. In our house, we use math books written by mathematicians, grammar books written by linguists, French books written by native speakers...so in a similar vein, we are not in the market for Canadian history written by anyone but professional Canadian historians. Other people may have different ideas, and that's fine. To each his own. I think that many Canadians feel that we're surrounded by "outsider perspectives" here, and we need to tell our own stories. (I'm not on Facebook either.) Thank you for asking, by the way; that was sensitive of you.

Thank you very much, that does help! I was looking at our provincial curriculum documents and not seeing any of the books listed earlier in this thread--and just wondering how the Nelson book on our approved list might compare. If you had thought it blew everything else out of the water, then I would have just bought that. It sounds like it's time to try to track down some cheap copies of a few different things and just see what we like the best. I've also been thinking of having a look at the IB Chem books, and maybe the IGCSE/A level ones as well, so lots to look at! Thanks again--and merry Christmas, too! Emerald

Catherine Storr, Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf; Polly and the Wolf Again. Some of the Noel Streatfeild books? Eva Ibbotson would fill the bill nicely, particularly if your daughter likes animals as well. ETA: Lloyd Alexander's Vesper Holly series. In most of the E. Nesbit books, the boys and girls are fairly equally important. Polly Horvath, When the Circus Came to Town. Kate is a strong character in The Mysterious Benedict Society books (I didn't like those as much as my kids did; the first one was the best of the series, I thought). Maybe better in a year or two in any case?

How about the Howard Whitehouse series? The Faceless Fiend, The Strictest School in the World, and The Island of Mad Scientists (actually, I can't remember the order any more--I may have the order mixed up). Those are a hoot. ETA: The John Fardell series has a boy for a main character, but two feisty girls in his gang of kids who keep saving the world from the forces of evil (they're James Bond for the younger set); those books are a lot of fun, too. The Seven Professors of the Far North, Flight of the Silver Turtle, and The Secret of the Black Moon Moth.

Connie, what do the Ontario schools use for Chem 11 & 12? Is it the Nelson Chem, as I think is the case in most of western Canada? What do you think of those books, if you are familiar with them? Thanks! (No need to answer if you are busy with Christmas preparations! I can bug you again in the New Year!)

Iain Lawrence, Gemini Summer.

Thought of something else: there's a list on a blog that Moira once suggested (I miss her). Our computer for some reason won't let me put links at WTM (I can link other places--why not here? It drives me crazy!). The blog is called "Contrary Brin," and the post you'd want is called "Science Fiction for Young Adults." It's from November 9, 2011. Also, another Moira suggestion we enjoyed is Jay Hosler; his books are graphic novels about science, and they're quite neat.

Has he read China Miéville's books? His two for younger readers are Railsea and Un Lun Dun, both very good, according to my kids. (He writes sci-fi for adults, too, but I don't know anything about those ones.)

Yes, they do; there's a list of American test centres on their site (WTM doesn't let me paste a link any more, which I don't understand...). I'll type out the link and see if that works: http://www.french-exam.com/2013/06/18/where-to-take-your-delf-dalf-exam-in-united-states-of-america/ Darn. That doesn't seem to have worked. Well, Google "DELF DALF USA" and you should see one of the first results being a page that says, "where to take your DELF/DALF exam in the USA". Sorry I'm not better at linking!

Have you thought about the DELF exams? There'd be no "running out" of French if you did those!

Felix Brown III & Helen Brown

How does he feel about older books? I'm wondering about authors like Rider Haggard (King Solomon's Mines, etc.), Anthony Hope (Prisoner of Zenda), John Buchan (Thirty-Nine Steps, etc.)--classic late 19th, early 20th-c. adventure novels. Robert Louis Stevenson, of course. Kipling? Edgar Rice Burroughs? Conan Doyle? He wrote all of those Lost World stories as well as Sherlock Holmes. A few other ideas: -Leon Garfield's Smith -J. Meade Falkner, Moonfleet -BB (pseudonym of Denys Watkins Pitchford), Brendon Chase -Roderick Haig-Brown, Starbuck Valley Winter, Saltwater Summer -lots of Rosemary Sutcliff would fit your parameters; we especially liked Warrior Scarlet and Eagle of the Ninth -funny adventures? Three Men in a Boat, Three Men on the Bummel (both Jerome K Jerome), The Ascent of Rum Doodle (William Bowman)? -Farley Mowat, Lost in the Barrens (aka Two Against the North), The Black Joke -Joan Aiken, Go Saddle the Sea (that's the first of a trilogy, and is pretty much straight adventure; the second one has supernatural elements, and the third has romance--but the first one is "safe"!)

Guaranteed excitement: Joan Aiken's Felix trilogy (Go Saddle the Sea, Bridle the Wind, and The Teeth of the Gale)!

I wonder if your teen might like Christy Walters's "Fresh Approach" series? I've not used it, but it looks like a valuable alternative to some more traditional texts to me. She has Algebra 1 and 2, as well as Geometry.

(OT, but brief!) mathwonk--welcome back! Missed you the last month or so...I hope you had a great summer

Hi, Ella, I was able to buy the teacher's edition from the publisher several years ago. I told them I was a homeschooler, I bought the student text from them also, rather than from Amazon or other vendor (I think that was a requirement, if I am remembering correctly), and it all went smoothly. I don't know if their policy would still be the same, but it worked then. Hope that helps, and that you find something you like!

I second this fantastic book! I think this one might well be right up your alley, Farrar. My kids really loved this book (me, too); we had a great year of writing the year we used it. So many fun and creative ideas--lots of very open-ended suggestions--imaginative and original...it's very much about developing voice and building confidence in young writers, so it's not going to undermine things that are important to you. The first edition is less "schooly" than the newer one. There's easily a year's worth of "on the side" things to do there. Another sentence thing we tried was just picking sentences out of favourite books and using them as models (PG Wodehouse is absolutely super for this--the man wrote some very complex sentences!). ETA: A friend has her child keep a commonplace book (copying out favourite sentences from free reading into a fancy notebook). Maybe an idea? It's nice (and probably more effective) to work with materials that are more personally meaningful to your student than any pre-fab curriculum is going to be able to be. Then you could have him tell you about why he selected those sentences, what are some things he likes about them, and so on? E(Again)TA: Another favourite around here was "Spilling Ink." Also Peter Stillman's books are interesting.

Farrar, have you seen the Muggins math prealgebra set? It looks from the sample video like a pretty neat way to explore negative numbers. I think MariannNoVa used this set and liked it very much (hope I'm remembering her user name correctly). There's also Josh Rappaport's Pre Algebra Blastoff book, which I've not seen, but might be interesting to you?

Another useful thread, maybe: forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/503269-elementary-greek-or-athenaze/ Hmmm...can't make that clickable. It's Amy Jo's thread from February 2 on the Logic board, in any case.

You're most welcome! Good luck with your decision.