My Book House

[LauraBeth475]

If you have these, how do you use them in your homeschool?

[nixpix5]

It is different all of the time but we pulled them off the shelves this year to read the Greek and Roman myths and stories. Next year we are using them in our geography study by reading stories from various European countries. We will also read the stories and writers pertaining to the middle ages. Sometimes I pull from them for copy work or read a story for narration. I find them to be a lovely and flexible resource. 

[LauraBeth475]

2 hours ago, nixpix5 said:

It is different all of the time but we pulled them off the shelves this year to read the Greek and Roman myths and stories. Next year we are using them in our geography study by reading stories from various European countries. We will also read the stories and writers pertaining to the middle ages. Sometimes I pull from them for copy work or read a story for narration. I find them to be a lovely and flexible resource. 

I’m thinking about trying something similar, and choosing some selections that go along with our school subjects to read aloud at breakfast

[Lori D.]

We had this edition of the Young Folks Shelf of Books: Collier's Junior Classics, a 10-volume anthology, and used it similarly to nixpix5 -- often we inserted selections as they fit with DSs' ages, interests, and/or what we were studying in History or Literature. Or, we often enjoyed selections from the volumes as read-alouds. Or used short selections as assigned reading. The poetry selections are nice for a "tea and poetry" day or for poetry memorization. And, of course, the volumes were always available for free reading. : ) 

For more ideas on how to use these vintage anthologies, glean ideas from various posts in these threads:
- "How to use "My Book House Set"?"
- "Junior Classics anthology -- what now?"
- "What vintage reference anthology type of sets do you recommend"
- "My Book House vs. Journeys Through Book Land"
- "Just wanted to share again how much I really like Journeys Through Bookland"  
- "Junior Classics Anthology -- what now?" 
- "Anthologies: The Children's Hour vs Young Folks Library vs ?"

Enjoy! : ) Warmest regards, Lori D.

[nixpix5]

1 hour ago, LauraBeth475 said:

I’m thinking about trying something similar, and choosing some selections that go along with our school subjects to read aloud at breakfast

Someone in another thread posted an AWESOME link to a comparison break down between MBH and another set of books that had it broke into geography, animals, etc. It is such a help. I will go find the link and post it here.

[LauraBeth475]

2 hours ago, nixpix5 said:

Someone in another thread posted an AWESOME link to a comparison break down between MBH and another set of books that had it broke into geography, animals, etc. It is such a help. I will go find the link and post it here.

Is it this list from Libraries of Hope?  http://librariesofhope.com/new-story-guides.html

[nixpix5]

10 minutes ago, LauraBeth475 said:

Is it this list from Libraries of Hope?  http://librariesofhope.com/new-story-guides.html

Yes ?

[LauraBeth475]

I have a Collier’s set as well, and decided pretty quickly that I will schedule them once or twice a week as upper elementary/middle grade readers.  Less sure how to plan out MBH, especially since I was thinking I’d read aloud from those.

 

Thanks for the links!  I’ll start looking through them.

[Lori D.]

11 hours ago, LauraBeth475 said:

I have a Collier’s set as well, and decided pretty quickly that I will schedule them once or twice a week as upper elementary/middle grade readers...

Yes, a number of the volumes of the Collier's are for older students. In case it is of interest, below I've copy-pasted from a previous post of mine a break-down of what's in my pre-1960s edition. (After 1960 (or 1962?), the volumes were re-titled and the selections were rearranged, with some selections left out and new selections included. So your edition may be different than mine, and this might not be as much help. ; ) )

____________________________

good for grades 1+ = vol. 1, 2
good for grades 5+ = vol. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
good for grades 6-7+ (due to older vocabulary & sentence structure) = vol. 3, 4, 10

1 = Fairy Tales and Fables
(66 fairy tales from England, Ireland, Germany, Norway, France, Czechoslovakia, Russia, and India by 11 different authors, including some by the Grimm brothers; also 14 Aesop fables)

2 = Stories of Wonder and Magic
(26 folk tales and magic stories by famous authors such as Edward Lear, A.A. Milne, Carl Sandburg, George MacDonald, Walter de la Mare, Padraic Colum, Howard Pyle and Frank Stockton; also includes reprints of Aladdin and Ali Baba from "The Arabian Nights"; plus 8 stories by Hans Christian Andersen)

3 = Myths and Legends
(10 Greek/Roman myths, some by Thomas Bulfinch or Nathaniel Hawthorne)
9 Norse myths
6 myths from India
7 Native American myths
19 "old legends" which include St. George & Dragon, William Tell, The Flying Dutchman, + legends about beasts & saints

4 = Hero Tales
(ALL selections are prose retelling excerpts -- some by James Baldwin or Paidric Colum)
The Odyssey
Rustem and Sohrab (from the ancient Persian epic "Shah-Nameh")
The Forging of the Sampo (from the Finnish epic "The Kalevala")
The Song of Roland
The Chronicle of the Cid
Beowulf
King Arthur and the Round Table
The Hunting of the Boar" (a King Arthur story from the Welsh epic Mabinogion)
Finn and Oisin and Cuchulain (Finnish epics)
Robin Hood

5 = Stories That Never Grow Old
(ALL selections are complete reprints of the original, except where noted)
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll)
The King of the Golden River (John Ruskin)
Jackanapes (Juliana Horatia Ewing)
A Midsummer Night's Dream (Charles & Mary Lamb)
The Gold Bug (Edgar Allan Poe)
excerpts: Tales from the Travels of Baron Munchausen (Rudolph Eric Raspe)
excerpts: Gulliver's Voyage to lilliput (Jonathan Swift)
excerpts: Don Quixote (Miguel de Cervantes)
Rip Van Winkle (Washington Irving)
A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens)

6 = Stories About Boys and Girls
(20 selections, mostly reprinted chapters from longer works by mostly obscure authors, but includes more well known authors such as: Rachel Field; Louisa May Alcott; Mark Twain with a chapter from Adventures of Tom Sawyer; Booth Tarkington, with a chapter from Penrod; and Kathryn Forbes, with a chapter from Mama's Bank Account)

7 = Stories About Animals
(26 selections, mostly reprinted chapters from longer works by mostly obscure authors, but includes more well-known authors such as John Muir; Anna Sewell with a full reprint of her book "Black Beauty"; Jack London with a full reprint of his short story "Brown Wolf"; Eric Knight with a full reprint of his short story "Lassie Come Home"; Marjorie Rawlings with a chapter from "The Yearling"; and Rudyard Kipling with a full reprint of his short story "Moti Guj -- Mutineer")

8 = Stories from History
(22 selections, mostly reprinted chapters from longer works by such authors as Howard Pyle with a chapter from his Men of Iron; Andrew Lang; Hendrik Van Loon with 2 chapters from his Story of Mankind; Ester Forbes with a chapter from Johnny Tremain; Carl Sandburg from his biography on Abraham Lincoln; Robert Trumbull with a chapter from his autobiography on surviving a WW2 plane crash and survival in the ocean for 34 days; Ernie Pyle, WW2 war correspondent, with a reprinted article of heroism; chapters from biographies on Abraham Lincoln; an General MacArtherLouisa May Alcott; and a tall tale about The Devil and Daniel Webster)

9 = Sport and Adventure
(24 selections, some are reprinted chapters from longer works by mostly obscure authors, but also includes more well-known authors such as: Jack London with a full reprint of his short story "Chased by the Trail"; Howard Pyle with a chapter from his Pirates book; Conan Doyle with a full reprint of his short story "The Red-Headed League"; Robert Byrd with a chapter from his autobiography about flying over the North Pole; and Charles Lindbergh with a chapter from his autobiography about crossing the atlantic in a solo flight)

10 = Poetry (and a reading index guide to all 10 volumes)
(over 320 poems, with a mix of nursery rhymes; poem riddles; children's poems, and at least 100 of the world's most famous poems written before 1900)