Literature in Our Homeschool

We read five literature books each twelve-week term. Each day, we read 1-3 chapters of a book from the following categories: classics (Monday), citizenship (Tuesday), fairy tales and myths (Wednesday), Shakespeare (Thursday), and religious literature (Friday). Some books are completed in one term; some books take the whole school year to finish.

Here are some of the books one or both of my children have read for Literature for 1st-5th grade:

Classics: Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling, Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi, Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher, King Arthur by Howard Pyle, Peter Pan by James Barrie, Robin Hood by Howard Pyle, Heidi by Johanna Spyri, Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting, The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Wiggin, Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery, Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson, Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, Kim by Rudyard Kipling, The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain, Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss.

Fairy Tales and Myths: Hans Christian Andersen, The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang, A Wonder Book by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Heroes by Charles Kingsley, Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Golden Fleece by Padraic Colum, The Arabian Nights by Andrew Lang.  Age of Fable by Thomas Bulfinch starting in the fourth grade.

Citizenship: Aesop's Fables by Milo Winter, The Moral Compass by William Bennet.  Starting in the fourth grade, one biography from Plutarch's Lives is read each term.

Shakespeare: Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare by Edith Nesbit, Tales from Shakespeare by Charles Lamb. Starting in the fourth grade, one actual play is read each term.

Religous Literature: Parables from Nature by Margaret Gatty, Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress part 2 by John Bunyan,