What are "living books"?

[BrettW]

I keep seeing phrases like "we're reading tons of living books"? What exactly does that mean?:001_huh:

 

Brett

[Ellie]

People shouldn't use jargon. :-)

 

Educator Charlotte Mason used the word "living books" to describe trade books which were rich in language ("trade books" means books which you would buy at the book store or find in the library--not textbooks; it's a good professional educator term. :D ) and have no twaddle. So really, when homeschoolers say they're using "living books" it means primarily that they are not using textbooks.

[NanceXToo]

When I say it, I mean using literature to teach or reinforce a lesson rather than using (or strictly using) textbooks. A good book, even a good fiction book, about a particular historical event or time period, for instance, read and enjoyed together with my child, can help her learn about that event or time in a more interesting way than reading a passage from a dry textbook, and will be more likely to be remembered, too!

[swellmomma]

When I say it, I mean using literature to teach or reinforce a lesson rather than using (or strictly using) textbooks. A good book, even a good fiction book, about a particular historical event or time period, for instance, read and enjoyed together with my child, can help her learn about that event or time in a more interesting way than reading a passage from a dry textbook, and will be more likely to be remembered, too!

 

:iagree: I use them primarily to teach history but also include them in our math studies, grammar, and science. There is just so many good titles out there to help teach a concept without utilizing only a dry textbook(though we use those too)

[kristinannie]

Like PP said it is a Charlotte Mason term. Living books are high quality books that have literary value. Most of the books that Americans read would be considered twaddle. If you are truly following Charlotte Mason, you would use high quality literature and read small segments in a sitting so that your children wouldn't get tired and stop listening carefully.

[forty-two]

Here's some thoughts from Ambleside Online, which is a free CM curriculum: Toward a Definition of a Living Book, which expand a bit on what pp have said.

[Farrar]

I think a lot of people (including myself) use it especially to denote nonfiction or books that overtly teach concepts but that aren't textbooks.

 

It's a jargony, but useful term. I'm a lot less fond of CM's term "twaddle" but that's another story. :D

[ereks mom]

:iagree: I use them primarily to teach history but also include them in our math studies, grammar, and science. There is just so many good titles out there to help teach a concept without utilizing only a dry textbook(though we use those too)

 

:iagree:

[stripe]

I think it also excludes encyclopedic type books like Usborne/DK materials.

 

I think the term, as used by Mason, reflected the idea of a single author telling a narrative. I too think twaddle is overused (CM seems to have been a lot less restrained in her use of it than most of her online fans, but then she was also an evolutionist yet I just read a webpage on AO claiming that if she were alive today she would really be a creationist .... um, ok).

[Farrar]

I think it also excludes encyclopedic type books like Usborne/DK materials.

 

I think the term, as used by Mason, reflected the idea of a single author telling a narrative. I too think twaddle is overused (CM seems to have been a lot less restrained in her use of it than most of her online fans, but then she was also an evolutionist yet I just read a webpage on AO claiming that if she were alive today she would really be a creationist .... um, ok).

 

:iagree: (with your quiet part too:001_smile:)

 

So a book with narrative voice like Story of the World, is a "living book" but something like the Usborne Encyclopedia of World History (as useful as it is) is not.

[Erika]

Living books are books written by one author, whom has study the subject matter. Therefore, the author is able to bring to live the story with his/her own experiences with quality descriptions.

 

[angela in ohio]

Living books are books written by one author, whom has study the subject matter. Therefore, the author is able to bring to live the story with his/her own experiences with quality descriptions.

 

 

This is it exactly. A living book is written by someone who knows and cares about the subject, as opposed to books that are churned out by professional authors. The book could be in any form, even a textbook.

Edited August 11, 2011 by angela in ohio

[LAS in LA]

DH and I just listened to Susan Wise Bauer's talk "The Joy of Classical Education". She gives a very broad definition of a living book -- a book with a person's name on the cover. In other words, not a textbook, as everyone else here has said. But I agree that Charlotte Mason intended a narrower definition to exclude 'twaddle'.

[BrettW]

Thanks, everyone! I knew I could count on the Hive to know (what I don't).

 

Brett

[stripe]

I think this is also an interesting point to consider -- "we need living books with living ideas, not just because they are skillfully well written books, but because they feed the spirit, the Mind, and we need well nourished spirits."

 

And also "The living book, then, lives not only through the persons who wrote and who read it, but also touches people with whom the reader comes in contact. "

 

http://childlightusa.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/ponderings-about-living-books-by-carroll-smith/

[Scrub Jay]

When I say it, I mean using literature to teach or reinforce a lesson rather than using (or strictly using) textbooks. A good book, even a good fiction book, about a particular historical event or time period, for instance, read and enjoyed together with my child, can help her learn about that event or time in a more interesting way than reading a passage from a dry textbook, and will be more likely to be remembered, too!

 

Same here. The books make the info "come to life" for the reader.