My son is only 3 and, when I read the first 2 chapters of Farmer Boy, he said, "I want to keep reading this forever." Almanzo talks so much about food that it's hard for a food-loving boy not to like it! Interestingly, he's NOT into Winnie the Pooh. It just doesn't spark his fancy. I'm excited to look into these recommendations!

@thecommonplacehomeschool

3 ай бұрын

Hahah, it’s interesting how some stories take and others do not!

If you’re willing to show a video of how your read-aloud-time goes, I would love to see it. I am curious about the style of how you read!

@thecommonplacehomeschool

26 күн бұрын

I read with voices for each character! I don't film my life in real-time (protect the kids and the sacredness of our quiet, ordinary life together) but I have mentioned tips and fun things for read alouds in many resources!

This list is wonderful. It's bringing to mind the book by Noel Streatfeild, The House in Cornwall - the new edition by Manderley Press is beautiful and beautifully illustrated

@thecommonplacehomeschool

7 күн бұрын

I don't know that one! Thank you for the recommendation!

I would love a list of titles with authors in the description please!

@thecommonplacehomeschool

10 ай бұрын

Ah, I'm so bad at doing that! I will add them!

I love what you mentioned about boys. It's is so very true. I have 4 of them , two of which are now adults. Peterpan is indeed helpful in the understanding of the younger male mind. ❤

@thecommonplacehomeschool

10 ай бұрын

It was such a help to me to have a better distinction between childish selfishness (I can't yet see beyond myself) and selfishness, and delighted-by-myself (I have fingers and toes!) and conceited. I really can't recommend it more to moms of sons!

Oh my gosh! I’m so glad I’m not the only one who has tried so hard to bring in little house and it not work at. All.

@thecommonplacehomeschool

10 ай бұрын

You're not alone!

How are you, Autumn!??! I don't know if you remember us, you have a lot of life and photography under your belt since 2014, but you graciously took our homeschooled daughter's senior photos on one of the coldest days that December. I was watching this video that popped up in my timeline and I couldn't shake the fact that there was something familiar. I finally saw a reference to your old website: WeAreTheKerns and everything made sense. As a classical/CM homeschooler in this space for 20+ years, you are SO right - how did you get so smart? The books you referenced brought back so many good memories, I'll have to dig them out again and just read them for myself. My youngest is a Junior in High School enrolled with Paideia Academics for this Humanities Program. I teach middle school with Paideia Online Homeschool Academy so I will be subscribing to your channel for support and insight. ❤

@thecommonplacehomeschool

10 ай бұрын

Oh my goodness, YES! Hello again! I absolutely remember and now all of the literary elements make perfect sense. (I doubt hearing "Charlotte Mason" or "classical" would've stuck with me then!) What a delightful connection.

We have one chapter left of Pinocchio and my whole family loves it! We got it for our son's 6th birthday and it's his "most treasured book".

@thecommonplacehomeschool

8 ай бұрын

It is so good! He completely captured and pained and delighted my children's hearts!

Ooo. You make all these sound amazing. So inspired.

@thecommonplacehomeschool

10 ай бұрын

I hope you find a new favorite!

Love your recommendations. I have 4 boys and I am still learning how they are wired. Thank you for your insight. So far my oldest has loved the few Nesbit books we have.

@thecommonplacehomeschool

10 ай бұрын

I wish I had known Nesbit earlier in life! I adore her! And yes, boys are delightful and otherly.

I enjoyed these book recommendations! We also have two books going at the same time. We read at lunch time. My husband works from home part of the week, so he reads when he’s home (he does voices and accents so well). I read a second book on the days that he’s not home. We’ve read The Book of Dragons and The Railway Children, and they fell kind of flat (although there were some really tender moments in The Railway Children). I’ll have to read the other one you mentioned. We have been working our way through The Little House series. We love them, and I’m kind of sad we only have two left. After those we’re going to round back through Narnia. We first read them in 2020 when my oldest was 5. I’m excited that we get to experience them again now. So funny you mentioned Pinocchio too. My 8-year-old found the unabridged version at the library and has been reading it this week. He really enjoys analyzing differences between book and film versions. I could keep going because I love talking books, but I’ll stop!

@thecommonplacehomeschool

10 ай бұрын

The best kind of conversation! I also love reading with accents/voices. I tend to get voices confused after awhile, so I find accents work better for us-ha! I'm hoping we're on track to read the whole Little House series but, if not, there's always Narnia...

My son liked Little House in The Big Woods, he loved Farmer Boy. These are great recommendations! Many I hadn't heard of, but will be looking for.

@thecommonplacehomeschool

10 ай бұрын

Enjoy! I hope you find a new favorite!

We loved Peter Pan, Pinocchio, and Little House in the Big Woods. Many of the other books you suggested are on my looong to read to my boys list! Right now we are reading Robin Hood and my boys are enthralled!

@thecommonplacehomeschool

9 ай бұрын

Hahaha, love the loooong to read list. Ain't that the truth!?

Your experience with Little House on the Prairie was similar to mine. A girlfriend of mine recommended that we try to start with Farmer Boy and she was so right! I have two young boys aaaand we live on an farm and it was definitely the way to kick off this series. My oldest son (5) constantly asks me to re read certain chapters he loves and it has made me so happy! Your videos are inspiring to me when I need some pulling up and some guidance and I am grateful for your content!

@thecommonplacehomeschool

6 ай бұрын

Maybe we should tell everyone they actually need to start with Farmer Boy! It's the magic fix! And thank you for the encouragement! So happy to have you here.

8 hrs?! Your endurance is incredible. My voice would give out and my own attention span might wane.

@thecommonplacehomeschool

10 ай бұрын

Lots of tea breaks definitely helped but cozy reading aloud all day to my kids was a dream realized!

My maiden name is Barfield and I didn’t know this! Now I have to research my ancestry a little more. Loved all of these recommendations!

@thecommonplacehomeschool

10 ай бұрын

Please report back if you are, in fact, related to Owen Barfield.

I'm finishing Anne of Green Gables with my 11 year old boy today. He fought me at first, but now loves it.

@thecommonplacehomeschool

10 ай бұрын

Ah-ha! Yes! Good books are for *persons*, you know?

I read both Peter Pan and Pinocchio with my oldest last year! We loved them both. We haven't gotten around to other Nesbit novels yet, but we finished the Psammead series which was a big hit as well.

@thecommonplacehomeschool

10 ай бұрын

Oh, I haven't come across that one yet-thank you!!

@RaeBehrs

10 ай бұрын

@@thecommonplacehomeschool "Five Children and It" is the first in the series. I highly recommend it!

I’ll have to send you the poem on common place about drinking from the saucer! I loved it

@thecommonplacehomeschool

10 ай бұрын

Please do!

Ahhh. We just read swallows and amazons and LOVED it!!!

@thecommonplacehomeschool

10 ай бұрын

I'm itching to buy the next one in the series!

@AndreaSorial

10 ай бұрын

@@thecommonplacehomeschool me too!

Hi there! I really appreciate your videos and your podcast. I’m a new mom, my son is almost 11 months old, and this year has been a very hard but beautiful season. We are still getting no sleep at this point, which I know plays into my feeling of overwhelm. I just wonder how you are able to do it all? Keep the house clean, feed everyone, develop yourself, homeschool, and everything else life involves. I feel totally bewildered by how moms are able to be keepers of the house and raise children with intention and not sitting behind screens. It’s so admirable, and it’s my dream to be able to do that too. I just feel like how am I going to be able to do all of this when I can barely get things done with a single baby. Can you please share how you’re able to get everything done that you need to get done without going crazy? When you had babies and toddlers, was life much different for you? Thank you so much!

@thecommonplacehomeschool

10 ай бұрын

Hey there! Sleep deprivation is no joke. Whenever I was in a hard season (before we started formal schooling which has some special responsibilities), I always focused on: getting outside as much as we could, reading the best books (for the kids and myself), and keeping the good habits we could keep. I didn't start anything with the CP until my youngest was almost a year and I started very small (just the podcast every other week). But I did work through the "early years" and time-blocking was very helpful for me. Every season, every new baby, etc. grows your capacity. If you had tossed all that I do now at me when my oldest was 11 months, I would've cried. But those muscles have grown slowly over the last six years, with a little more weight here and there. Lastly, I do have the Benediction Table Guide and the Way of the Will Guide on my website or in Common House. The BT is what I started when my oldest was about 18 months and was my first major "implementation" of Mason's principles in our home. The Way of the Will is how to get your house back on track after a big shift (like a new baby).

Oh, if your family likes The Book of Dragons, I suspect you'd also be delighted by The Ordinary Princess. It has a similar lightheartedness, but the author, M.M. Kaye, most definitely takes her reader seriously (in a fun way)!

@thecommonplacehomeschool

10 ай бұрын

*adds to cart*

You hinted at your opinion on hardcover versus paperback books, so out of curiosity, when/how do you decide to purchase an illustrated version of a book versus a non illustrated one? I am always torn over the decision myself and cant peg down a good way to make such a choice.

@thecommonplacehomeschool

10 ай бұрын

Oooh. I was just talking about this with my next interview guest (releases on the 11th) before we recorded. She covers many illustrations as not to disrupt her children's imaginative work when listening to a story! I buy very old books now so they usually come with less than five illustrations but they're incredibly beautiful, so I do let my kids look at them. I am open to an illustrated version if the illustration is beautiful; otherwise, no thank you!

The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery for "mature adults".

@thecommonplacehomeschool

10 ай бұрын

Oh thank you! I don't know this one!

@CornerTalker

5 ай бұрын

Read fantasy all my life and didn't stumble upon this until my fifties. Hey! where has this been? (said I).

I agree with you about Disney. Another story that Disney has butchered is The Jungle Book. Our five kids loved the REAL story of Mowgli and the animal characters. And another of our favorites was The Wind in the Willows. The animal characters are so wonderful in how they are such loyal friends, even to the crazy Mr. Toad. It's a funny and lovely story.

@thecommonplacehomeschool

3 ай бұрын

Oh good to know! I hated the Disney movie so much as a child, I haven't considered reading it. So good to know!

I see you mentioned Peter Pan but the play version of it. Would you happen to have a link to one by any chance? I see so many options when I search and I don't know if theyre all the same. Thanks a lot!

@aprilbarker1028

10 ай бұрын

I didn’t realize that there were different versions either. I would love to know how to find the play version.

@thecommonplacehomeschool

10 ай бұрын

It looks like this is the original book version: www.amazon.com/Peter-Pan-Illustrated-Original-Illustrations/dp/9916987041/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?crid=1K6B9K2HC9SLH&keywords=peter+pan+original&qid=1693692085&sprefix=peter+pan+origina%2Caps%2C110&sr=8-2-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&psc=1 I also have a collection "The Plays of JM Barrie" which has the play!

I wasn't expecting so many books I've never heard of. I love this. I told my husband (prompted by all these books I've never heard of) that growing up people told me I was so well read (because I liked reading - definitely wasn't classically educated). But as an adult now, I feel so underread. It's embarrasaing!

@thecommonplacehomeschool

10 ай бұрын

I wasn't classically educated and while also a lifelong reader, I still feel the same way! I usually point people towards this list from Dr. John Senior and then add *follow the footnotes. Most great writers are stealing from/inspired by past great writers and so on. I like following that trail. seascs.net/documents/2017/10/John%20Senior%20The%20Thousand%20Good%20Books%20List.pdf

These are such amazing titles for read-alouds, my daughter is 3. I wonder if you would recommend any of these for her age, or what you would recommend for a 3 year old.

@thecommonplacehomeschool

10 ай бұрын

Depends on the child! By three, all of my kids are listening to chapter books like these (My youngest is three!) but that's because my oldest set the norm by having a great habit of attention to longer stories when she was a toddler.

I saw in a comment earlier that you started reading chapter books to your 18-month-old. My daughter is a bit older at two. What do you feel your children gained from spending time reading these chapter books at such a young age versus picture books? I’d LOVE to read this sort of literature ASAP, but part of me wonders if she would be losing something by not spending as much time with the picture books. I did read a bit of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to my daughter today, and she actually did seem interested. I’ll keep trying as an experiment, as I’ve been wanting to finish reading the series myself. I’d just love to know from someone farther down the road how that panned out. An added complication for me is that I’m trying to raise my child bilingually. I speak to her in Spanish when my husband isn’t home. She understands me but doesn’t have as big of a spoken vocabulary in it yet. I read most of her books in Spanish to maximize her exposure to her second language.

@christyclark876

10 ай бұрын

I know that CM talks about children not needing to know all the words when they are reading literary-quality language, but I wasn’t sure quite how early that would apply!

@thecommonplacehomeschool

10 ай бұрын

Hmm. I'm not sure I've ever considered it in that way: gained from chapter books versus picture books. I don't think I have a great answer for this except that Narnia specifically is the foundation of the house's moral imagination. All of our fairytales and living books build out from the scaffolding Narnia (and scripture, I hope!) built in their minds/metaphors to interpret the world. My guess is this gift will be immeasurable as they grow! But note: I didn't start reading chapter books over picture books for any reason other than I loved these stories and wanted to share them. Had my oldest been a different kid who didn't take to them/wasn't able to "digest" in small doses, I would've waited! The rest of the kids were baptized into Narnia and our rhythms from birth so, in a sense, it's all they've known but still, they've each had their own way of coming to the stories.

Thank you ao much for sharing these books. I'm looking forward to reading them. I have a one question: how much of these books does your three year old understand? I have three kids, age 5 and 3(twins) and I don't think they are anywhere near understanding these. 😢 They are raised in a bilingual family, and english is not their strongest language. 😅 I know they will probably get there at some point but right now its disappointing.

@thecommonplacehomeschool

2 ай бұрын

So in those early years, "understanding" looks different than we think. Instead of an analytic understanding, we're building out a poetic understanding, which is more like a sensory-emotional understanding of Reality. Little children may not express deep thoughts on cause and effect, but they "catch" the vision of justice, courage, and love. They see-in their imaginations-what is right and wrong, good and evil. These images become metaphors by which they understand their own everyday realities, so giving them really great images and language from the start helps strengthen that non-analytic understanding and builds a foundation for analytic understanding later! It's really amazing. I have an interview coming out very soon about this very thing!

At what ages did you start reading these books to your kids? I love all these titles, but my 4 year old is definitely not "there" yet. We have always read plenty of living picture books over the years, but any time I've tried to introduce fairy tales or any elements of fantasy, he totally checks out! It makes me a little nervous because I'm planning to use AO as our curriculum.

@abigaelmacritchie1365

10 ай бұрын

I know you didn't ask me specifically but I thought I'd share my 2 cents as an elementary teacher. Maria Montessori theorised that before the age of 6, children are in the phase where they create the little boxes in which they will sort the information they encounter in their life. Therefore they are attracted to very concrete, factual stories that are perhaps less exciting to us literary romantic minds (I'm guessing you're a bit like me in that regard 😉). After 6 however, they start filling the boxes like maniacs, and they want to learn, explore, imagine, create... and indeed are much more interested by imaginary stories such as fairy tales, magic, etc.

@SkylarWhitmire

10 ай бұрын

@@abigaelmacritchie1365 Thank you for that! That's really helpful to know.

@Hookhamhomestead

10 ай бұрын

I feel like around 4 my daughter personally was just starting to sit for longer stories, but really we did some more like the Thornton burgess “adventures of series”, we did do fairytales and my daughter loves them (usually we did a Paul galdone illustrated type), but there are so many great books out there and usually when the oldest is engaged I feel like the others follow. My current 3 year old will sit through some of the books that were mentioned here because her 6 year old sister will, so it just depends on the age of your kids and the family make up. AO has a great year 0 book list, but CMEC has a great kinderlieben program with tons of book recommendations too. Totally worth the $300 even for “just the kinderlieben” program, because you get such an education in the philosophy before starting school 🙂

@thecommonplacehomeschool

10 ай бұрын

Lots of help in the comments-thanks everyone! I'm not familiar with Montessori but I started reading Narnia to my oldest around 18 months. (I always felt rude not engaging her-ha!) We did very small chunks but she loved being cuddled and having a "special tea" with me. I think because this was our habit, when the boys came along, they were thrown in and it's our norm. I'm of the opinion that what children need most from the very beginning is the Bible, classic fairytales, folk tales, and myths. But some may need very short forms, some may need the literary language in the form of picture books, etc. until their attention can be commanded for longer stretches (around 4-6 yo). If it's a subject matter problem, maybe pick a classic novel based on something he has an interest in? Space, bugs, mechanics, etc.?

Silmarillion is tough even for adults. I read that in college.

@thecommonplacehomeschool

10 ай бұрын

I've never read it! I can't even say it! Ha!

@akieffer

10 ай бұрын

@@thecommonplacehomeschool It's rich with theology :)

I'm glad to have found your channel, Autumn. Did your family create this catechism or is it derived from a book. I'd love to know.

@thecommonplacehomeschool

8 ай бұрын

Lovely to have you here! It's been awhile since I recorded this one and I rarely have notes before I start! Can you remind me which catechism you heard?

@damiajasa3786

7 ай бұрын

@@thecommonplacehomeschool Question: Who do we protect? (to your sons) Answer: Ladies and babies.

@thecommonplacehomeschool

7 ай бұрын

@@damiajasa3786 thank you! Yes, we made that one up when my eldest son was a toddler!

@Yesica1993

7 ай бұрын

That is so sweet!@@thecommonplacehomeschool

Is this list in Common House?

@thecommonplacehomeschool

10 ай бұрын

Which one? This exact video list or did I mention the threads/literary lists too? The latter are in Common House, yes!

🍁 ❤🍁❤

@thecommonplacehomeschool

10 ай бұрын

Fall vibes? Into it.

You made that joke about Anne of Green Gables with such a straight face.

@thecommonplacehomeschool

10 ай бұрын

This is one of my special gifts in life: deadpan jokes.

It is the quest of my lifetime to find a copy of the silver trumpet (not online for $200)

@thecommonplacehomeschool

10 ай бұрын

If you find it, I already called dibs on it so it's mine. Thank you for alerting me to it!

Where does Chesterton talk about "you not needing to tell everyone what they must do, etc"

@thecommonplacehomeschool

10 ай бұрын

It may be in Orthodoxy or Ethics of Elfland...gah, I can't remember now! I'll see if I can track it down!

You are my fantasy self

Do you maybe have a list for younger kids? I have an almost 3 year old boy and 18 month old girl and I don't think they would sit through that long of a book with no pictures, but I also don't want to read the paw patrol book ever again.

@thecommonplacehomeschool

9 ай бұрын

I recommend the Ambleside Online Year 0 reading list and the "One Thousand Good Books" by John Senior! Great starting places!

3 more years till the silver trumpet is public domain and can be reprinted easily.

@thecommonplacehomeschool

4 ай бұрын

Did you see it's actually on Amazon now?

I read the book Peter Pan and Peter was um... Not great. Maybe the play is better. I had Pinnochio read to me whem I was little and he just drove me nuts. Have you read Heidi?

@thecommonplacehomeschool

8 ай бұрын

Whaaat? You didn't like book Peter?! It wasn't a Disney version, right? Reading Heidi right now actually!

@ruthmaryprays8455

8 ай бұрын

I hate Peter Pan and Pinocchio- all versions. I love Heidi though- so did my children. A beautiful story of love, redemption and goodness.

I have a copy of Peter Pan, how do I tell if it’s the play-inspired original or Disney trash? 😂

@thecommonplacehomeschool

9 ай бұрын

It should be written by JM Barrie, not based on JM Barrie.

Pinocchio is a book? NOBODY TELLS ME ANYTHING!

@thecommonplacehomeschool

7 ай бұрын

Oh yeah. A GOOD book.

First 😂

@thecommonplacehomeschool

10 ай бұрын

Congrats.