Your favorite Sonlight Core 100 lit books

[JadeOrchidSong]

There are many books in Sonlight Core 100. I will use the book list along with America the Beautiful for ds11 and CLE Changing Frontiers for Ds13. If you have used this core, what are your favorite books in it? Thanks!

[Lori D.]

While we didn't use SL, we used quite a few of the books from all of the cores. Of the current SL100 list, we read just about half of the History/Geography and Literature books.

 

Favorites from the current SL100 list:

The Boys' War

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Call of the Wild

Maniac Magee

Rip Van Winkle

To Kill a Mockingbird

 

Enjoyable or interesting, if you have time:

Dragon's Gate

The Panama Canal

The View from Saturday

A Year Down Yonder / A Long Way from Chicago

Shh! We're Writing the Constitution

The Panama Canal

 

Books we did not care for:

Cameron Townsend -- not a fan of the Janet & Geoff Benge biographies -- not well-written IMO

WWII -- not a fan of Richard Maybury's extreme viewpoint

Peace Child -- only because it's an adult book and not really appropriate for middle school

 

Books we didn't know about, but wish we could have read:

Children of the Longhouse

Freedom Walkers

The Yanks Are Coming

When You Reach Me

 

Books geared for grades 4-6 which you can skip if your DSs are beyond that reading level:

Stink Alley

Keeping Score

Bonanza Girl

Shh! We're Writing the Constitution

Traitor: Case of Benedict Arnold

The Great Little Madison

 

 

I know you're trying to CUT your list down to size and don't really need MORE titles (lol), BUT… here are a few others we did with American History/American Literature that we really enjoyed -- and I am ** the extra-extra favorites ;) :

 

1500-1600s

** First Voyage to America: From the Log of the Santa Maria (Columbus) -- gr. 5+

- Walk the World's Rim (Baker) -- gr. 6-9

- The King's Fifth (O'Dell) -- gr. 8+

- Boy on the Mayflower (Vinton) -- gr. 3-6

 

1700s

** Sign of the Beaver (Speare) -- gr. 4-7

- Ben and Me; Mr. Revere and I (Lawson) -- gr. 4-6

- Naya Nuki: The Girl Who Ran (Thomasa) -- gr. 4-7

- Tikta'Liktak (Houston) -- gr. 3-7

- Robert Fulton, Boy Craftsman (Henry) -- gr. 4-7

- The Journeyman (Yates) -- gr. 6-9

 

1800s

- Alec Majors (Anderson) -- the Santa Fe Trail -- gr. 3-5

- Island of the Blue Dolphins (O'Dell) -- gr. 6-9

** By the Great Horn Spoon (Fleischman) -- gr. 4-7

- Sing Down the Moon (O'Dell) -- gr. 6-9

- The Great Turkey Walk -- gr. 5-8

** Lincoln: A Photobiography (Freedman) -- gr. 3-7

** Behind Rebel Lines (Reit) -- gr. 4-7

- Across Five Aprils (Hunt) -- gr. 7+

- Sounder (Armstrong) -- gr. 6-9

** The Great Wheel (Lawson) -- gr. 5-8

 

1900s

- The Great Brain (Fitzgerald) -- gr. 5-8

- Bully for You Teddy Roosevelt (Fritz) -- gr. 4-6

** In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson (Lord) -- gr. 4-8

** My Side of the Mountain (George) -- gr. 5-8

 

overview books:

- American Adventures (Greenburg) -- vol. 1 esp. -- short bios of interesting little-known Americans

- Beautiful Feet Geography guide and map pack, using the 4 Holling C. Holling books:

** Paddle to the Sea

** Tree in the Trail

**Seabird

Minn of the Mississippi

Edited August 10, 2016 by Lori D.

[Upward Journey]

These were our favorite Sonlight/Winter Promise books

 

Blood on the River

Regina Silsby's Secret War

Fever 1793

Indian Captive

The Stout-Hearted Seven

Bound for Oregon

The Slave Dancer

The Slopes of War

Rifles for Watie

The Ballad of Lucy Whipple

Wait for Me, Watch for Me, Eula Bee

Earthquake at Dawn

Monnshiner's Son

My Side of the Mountain

[JadeOrchidSong]

Lori, thanks for breaking it up so nicely.

Upward Journey, thanks for the WP titles, too! I used the Quest for Middle Ages last year.

I visited my friend who uses SL exclusively and asked her to give me suggestions. So now I have a good base to choose from. Thank you very very much!