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The Children's Homer or The Trojan War


Mom0012
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I'm familiar with Children's Homer, but not The Trojan War. I personally would replace both with Rosemary Sutcliff's Black Ships Before Troy and The Wanderings of Odysseus.

 

I have Black Ships Before Troy out from the library and was considering that as well. I love that book. This is for my 5th and 7th grader, though. I want to beef up a few of the book selections. Would you still recommend Sutcliff's books over the others?

 

Thanks!

Lisa

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Okay, I just checked my copy of TWTM and both of the books I mentioned plus the Sutcliff book are recommended. They are all on the 5th grade reading list because that's when TWTM recommends doing Ancients, but the Sutcliff book has a 1300 lexile level (well above 5th grade) even though it would seem to be the easiest book since it is more of a picture book (sort of). I can't find lexile levels on either of the other two books.

 

Anyone else familiar with these books? I found a thread on the SL boards where a lot of long time SL users said The Trojan War was the first book they ever dropped from a core because they just couldn't get through it.

 

Lisa

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For what it's worth, we'll be trying The Children's Homer. Both of mine disliked the Sutcliff books alot (at least I'm hoping it was the style of the writing and not the story). :) My oldest should be doing more of a translation but with his delays and dyslexia, I'm good with this. I've heard Colum is very accessible. Someone else recommended Robert Lancelyn Green's versions to me as well. From the samples I read, I really liked them and my daughter may like them better too. She dislikes anything "old".

 

Good luck,

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I am not familiar with the other, but we used Children's Homer as a read-aloud when they were 7 and 9. Two years later, they still talk about their favorite parts, and picked up on the extended Odyssey metaphor (and specific references) in the new Ice Age movie in theaters. DS the elder read Black Ships the following year and wasn't as excited by it; he felt it left too much out.

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