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Help me beef up this reading list (Ancients, logic stage, strong reader; x-post)


patchfire
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We'll be swinging back around to ancients & the beginning of medieval times next year, and, yes, I'm already working on it. :tongue_smilie: Dd will be in fifth grade. She's a strong reader; I would say she's currently on a 7th or 8th grade level. I find it difficult at times to get age-appropriate books that still challenge her.

 

So I have a list of books for next year; some of these may be read-alouds or summer reading. However, I have a lot of them in hand and frankly, I worry that not enough of these are challenging. Suggestions for different books about the same thing or additional works would be welcome.

 

Gilgamesh the Hero, Geraldine McCaughrean.

1001 Arabian Nights, Geraldine McCaughrean.

Tales of Ancient Egypt, Roger Lancelyn Green.

Heroes, Gods, and Monsters of Greek Myths, Bernard Evslin.

The Golden Fleece, Padraic Colum.

Tales of the Greek Heroes, Green

The Children’s Homer, Padraic Colum.

Aesop’s Fables

The Last Days of Socrates, Plato.

The Aeneid for Boys and Girls, Church.

Caesar’s Gallic Wars, Coolidge.

Julius Caesar, Shakespeare.

Tales from the Mabinogion, Gwyn Thomas and Kevin Crossley-Holland.

Tales from China, Cyril Birch.

Tales from Japan, Helen McAlpine and William McAlpine.

Tales from India, J. E. B. Gray.

Tales from Africa, Kathleen Arnott.

Song for a Dark Queen, Rosemary Sutcliff.

Heroes and Heroines, Monsters and Magic, Bruchac.

 

I could add Bullfinch’s Mythology or Mythology, Hamilton, or substitute either of those for one of the other Greek myth books (Green or Evslin, likely). I will have a bunch of fun books on hand as well for her to choose - Detectives in Togas, Caroline Lawrence's Roman Mysteries series, Eloise McGraw's books set in Ancient Egypt, and so forth, but those also won't really challenge her.

 

Help! :)

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We'll be swinging back around to ancients & the beginning of medieval times next year, and, yes, I'm already working on it. :tongue_smilie: Dd will be in fifth grade. She's a strong reader; I would say she's currently on a 7th or 8th grade level. I find it difficult at times to get age-appropriate books that still challenge her.

 

I will have a bunch of fun books on hand as well for her to choose - Detectives in Togas, Caroline Lawrence's Roman Mysteries series, Eloise McGraw's books set in Ancient Egypt, and so forth, but those also won't really challenge her.

 

Help! :)

 

I am currently doing Ancients with a 5th and 2nd grader and I am reading The Golden Goblet by McGraw aloud. My 5th grader is also what I would consider an advanced reader but the content and pacing of this book, and others of its kind, would be somewhat boring. He does enjoy it reasonably well as a read aloud.

I recently graduated with a degree in Secondary English Education and taught at several local high schools this past spring. I can tell you that the language in this book would be challenging for many middle and high schoolers. If this is simple for your daughter that is wonderful but you may not need to push her school reading to be much more challenging than this. To get more difficult IMO would be to read something in a textbook format that uses different kinds of language. YMMV.

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