Nelson Mandela said, “A good heart and a good head are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special.” When our 18yo self-published her first book at age 10, we were excited for her. She has now self-published 4 books in her Fairy Palace series and is an English major studying creative writing in college. I don’t feel like we can take a lot of credit for that, except for our great love of literature.
When my oldest was kindergarten age, and I sat down to seriously design our family’s educational plan, the first thing I wanted was a really great bookshelf. Following the principles I had learned as a professional educational designer, I wanted to put only the most important books on our shelves. The question I would ask myself was, “Are the lessons taught in this book so important that my children could read it every year and gain something new each time?”
From this initial selection, we’ve continued to refined the shelf as a family. When deciding if a new book should go on the shelf, we first look for books that represent a relentless pursuit of truth, beauty, and goodness. This means we focus on character traits and general comprehension rather than transmission of information. In our day in time, information is only a finger swipe away, but learning what to do with the information we have been given is a skill we must carefully cultivate. Too much information dilutes intention. It creates lush branches, but poor fruit. The books on our shelf are ones we have identified as the framework for our family worldview. They are the ones we select because we want them to be part of our souls. We also have books with a lot of information, but they are intended to be a supplement to observation, read in parts as occasion and interest allow.
As a secondary criteria, I did also want to make sure there was enough there that I could feel comfortable if they only knew what was on our bookshelves. For the older ages, I defer to what others have determined to contain the wisdom of the ages, the Harvard Classics and the Great Books of the Western World. These are what Harvard and Columbia University professors have determined give us the educational background that is foundational to our society’s knowledge. We are in the process of developing these series into a more systematic approach, but our older students who read them are usually transitioning into dual-enrollment college courses, so they usually have to balance their time more carefully. With this criteria, beyond the continual search and discussion of the book selections themselves, we have a mostly set-it-and-forget-it approach which has served our family well.
Our bookshelf isn’t as vast as many. I see it as more of a foundation for additional learning, as a scaffold that holds our place. As many of you probably know, when you love books, good books come and go easily in your life, so we haven’t found this minimal approach to be a problem. We usually have more books coming into our lives than we know what to do with, as we have an incurable desire to find additional books that belong on the shelf. If they don’t make the shelf, we let them go, knowing more great books that are just right at the time will come our way. As for the best books, we don’t want to allow our children to chance upon them. We introduce them to our children as friends!
When we talk about books as a family and read books aloud together, we create a culture of the love of great literature that in turn inspires writing. Having friends that also love to read and write further magnifies our family’s culture of a love of the written word. From what I’ve seen from our family and friends who have similar approaches to literature, we don’t have to prod much for these children to write or discuss. The ideas bubble forth, as if they can’t help themselves. As Steven Spielberg shared, “Only a generation of readers will spawn a generation of writers.”
Welcome to the bookshelf! Feel free to check out our favorite picture books and our favorite books for readers.
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