Learning comes alive with living books!
Charlotte Mason had a passion for living books being at the heart and center of a child’s education! Why? Well, simply put, “living” books make learning ‘come alive.’ They pull you into a subject and make you want to read more. Think about some of the books that have impacted you the most. These books spoke to you for one reason or another, and they stayed with you long after the last page was read. Living books do that. Dry textbooks with encyclopedia-like writing do the opposite. In fact, instead of making learning ‘come alive,’ they seem to put us to sleep. Very few textbooks, if any, make their way onto our favorite books’ list. An education with living books is a lasting education, because what is read is remembered.
“Children should have the joy of living in far lands, in other persons, in other times – a delightful double existence; and this joy they will find, for the most part, in their story books. Their lessons, too, history and geography, should cultivate their conceptive powers. If the children do not live in the times of his history lesson, be not at home in the climate his geography book describes, why, these lessons will fail of their purpose.” – Charlotte Mason
Authors love what they write about in their living books!
Living books are often written by authors that are passionate about one thing, and that one thing is the topic of their beloved book(s). For example, John Hudson Tiner is passionate about science. This love comes through in the living books he’s authored, like Exploring Planet Earth. Ann Voskamp is passionate about geography, and so she wrote A Child’s Geography I and II. Edward Eggleston was passionate about American history, and so was William J. Bennett, which is why they wrote the amazing living books they did! Starr Meade loves the Bible, and so she authored Grandpa’s Box and The Most Important Thing You’ll Ever Study! Bob Schultz had a heart for helping boys become Christian men, while Joni Eareckson Tada and Bobbi Wolgemuth are passionate about hymns. The author passionate about what he/she writes produces a far different book than a group of people mass writing a textbook together.
“One more thing is of vital importance; children must have books, living books; the best are not too good for them; anything less than the best is not good enough; and if it is needful to exercise economy, let go everything that belongs to soft and luxurious living before letting go the duty of supplying the books, and the frequent changes of books, which are necessary for the constant stimulation of the child’s intellectual life.” ― Charlotte Mason
Children come alive by reading living books!
Heart of Dakota uses living books for as many school subjects as possible. All of the authors I mentioned earlier are people your children will get to ‘meet’ via their living books using Heart of Dakota! The other day, we had our eye doctor appointments. Each of my sons brought a book to read, and the receptionist asked me what I did to get them to read books. I told her these books were simply amazing! The kind you just can’t put down! She told me sadly how rare it is to see children reading anymore – they always seemed to be playing games on their phones. “Whatever those books are, I need to get some!” she said. “I want my little one to love reading like your sons do!” Two words dear… ‘living books.’ That’s all I can say! They just make learning come alive!!!
“The most common and the monstrous defect in the education of the day is that children fail to acquire the habit of reading.”– Charlotte Mason
In Christ,
Julie
