What's on the bookshelf?

We do A LOT of reading each day.  Using Sonlight as our core, which is a literature based program, ensures we'll never be short on books.  We have a book we are going through for our Bible time, we have a literature based science program so there's a book we read for science, usually more than 1 book we're working through for history, and then our read-aloud also ties in with what we are learning for history.  If that's not enough the girls have a book they have to read on their own for history and then they have a fun book of their choosing that they need to spend at least 30 mins each day reading.  We also like to read as a family so we almost always have a read-aloud we are going through together in the evenings and or an audio-book we are listening to.  If you're counting that's upwards at 8+ books at any given time.

I love that reading together and on our own is such a huge part of our family and something we all value.  I'm so thankful that over the last few years the girls have truly developed a love of reading.  We tend to check out library books by the stack and work our way through them each week.  I'm so thankful for an amazing library system that we can utilize to incorporate so many great books into our lives.

For the past two years the girls have really loved American Girl books.  At the start of the summer they had gotten to the place where they had read almost all of them and were ready to move onto something else.  I was excited that they were finally old enough to read well and enjoy the classics so I started ordering a ton of great classics for them to read from the library.

Although we only require 30 mins of reading each day, it's not unusual to find the girls curled up for a few hours getting through their next great adventure.  And drives in the car are usually very silent as they each tend to read everywhere we go.  I can't tell you how happy that makes my heart!

These are a few of the books you could find the girls reading over the summer...

Stuart Little – E.B. White
The Whipping Boy – Sid Fleichman

Emily’s Runaway Imagination – Beverly Cleary

Ginger Pye – Eleanor Estes

Socks – Beverly Cleary

Misty of Chiconteague – Marguerite Henry

Ralph S. Mouse – Beverly Cleary

Island of the Blue Dolphins – Scott O’Dell

The Incredible Journey – Sheila Burnford

Dear Mr. Henshaw – Beverly Cleary

Lumber Camp Library – Natalie Kinsey-Warnock

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea – Jules Verne

The Trumpet of the Swan – E.B. White

Number the Stars – Lois Lowry

My Father’s Dragon – Ruth Stiles Garnett

The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The Sword in the Stone – T.H. White

The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame

Cheaper by the Dozen – Frank B. Gibreth

The Toothpaste Millionaire – Jean Merrill

A Llama in the Family – Johanna Hurwitz

Frindle – Andrew Clements

The Hundred Dresses – Eleanor Estes

The Railway Children – E.Nesbit

Pollyanna – Eleanor H. Porter

The Swiss Family Robinson – Johann Wyss

What was on your bookshelf this summer?