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Living books are the opposite of dull, dry textbooks. The people, places and events come alive as you read a living book. The stories touch your mind and heart. They are timeless.
For a list of children’s books recommended by grade level, click on the illustration.
Catherine Levison, author of A Charlotte Mason Education, says:
“Charlotte Mason advocated avoiding twaddle and feasting children’s hearts and minds on the best literary works available. Twaddle is what parents and educators today might call ‘dumbed down’ literature. It is serving your children intellectual happy meals, rather than healthy, substantive mind- and soul-building foods.”
Miss Mason also recommended whole books rather than anthologies. Whole books are the entirety of the books the author actually wrote. If the author wrote a book, read the whole book. The opposite of this would be anthologies that include only snippets from other works—maybe a chapter from Dickens, a couple of paragraphs from Tolstoy, etc.
A long-time online aquaintance of mine recently posted a series of posts on her blog about how she was able to put together an entire year’s worth of curriculum from just a couple of trips to the thrift store.
If you think homeschooling’s just too expensive to consider pursuing seriously, take a look at Mama Squirrel’s ideas. 
Here’s a link to her series of posts:
”What I came up with isn’t necessarily a Charlotte Mason curriculum; that needs to be clear … I think it’s more like an amalgam of Sonlight Curriculum and Ruth Beechick; it’s supposed to be something that could keep you going, even if you were homeschooling for the first time.” –Mama Squirrel
Later today I’m going to be adding a small pile of used books to my eBay store. I’m in the midst of trying to do some serious decluttering around my house. Wish me luck! 
A number of the books will be about financial and simple living topics that might be of interest to readers of this blog. Plus, there should be some children’s books, educational materials, and classic literature, as well.
So far, I’ve listed several books in the Core Knowledge Series (What Your Kindergartner [1st, 2nd, 3rd grader] Needs to Know). I also have an unused (and unopened) copy of Quicken Personal Finance 2007 Home & Business software. And due to popular demand from several friends, I’m going to list a couple of photographs that I’ve taken and had made into 8″x10″ prints and matted in 11″x14″ mattes.
Feel free to stop by later and see if there’s anything that interests you or your family.
http://stores.ebay.com/Simple-Pleasures-Books-and-Gifts
~Debi
Because Charlotte Mason strongly recommended the avoidance of twaddle, parents are often concerned about what it is and how they can successfully avoid it in the context of education.
First, let’s look at the synonyms of twaddle which include, babble, drivel and silly. Ordinarily twaddle refers to literature written down to children. Books written to children are not avoided. A good example would be any of Beatrix Potter’s works — she writes to children but not down to them. If we were to review what Charlotte would recommend in children’s literature we’d look for interesting content and well constructed sentences clothed in literary language. She wanted the imagination to be warmed and the book to hold the interest of the child. In Charlotte Mason’s opinion, life’s too short to spend time with books that bore us.
If our children have only been exposed to junk food, they may resist trying nutritious food. If they’ve been raised on twaddle, they may need to be weaned slowly off of this mental junk food. Ideally, if they were not exposed to twaddly books in the first place, all involved would be way ahead of the game.
It is my opinion that dumbed-down literature is easy to spot. When you’re standing in the library and pick up modern-day, elementary-level books, you’re apt to see short sentences with very little effort applied to artistically constructing them to please the mind. Almost anyone can write — but not everyone is gifted in this field. Gifted authors bring images alive with their choice of words (I do not claim to be gifted in this area, by the way. Writing is just an efficient mode of communication to me — I much prefer talking). Gifted authors often write classic literature, and classics are an excellent way to spend one’s reading time.
Twaddle is easy to come by; the planet is filled with it. People coped with it in Charlotte Mason’s day, and we must cope with it in ours’. If anything, literature has deteriorated even further. The best way to cope with this excessive quantity of bad books is to stand firm and only spend our money on the best.
But what about friends and relatives who unknowingly supply our children with twaddle at gift-giving times? Try talking to those who are apt to buy gifts for your children and tell them about the direction you’re heading with reading material. Some people pick up on things easier than others, therefore, for some folks a simple explanation of the type of literature you want purchased as gifts is all they’ll need. If you’ve started to collect any particular set of children’s classics currently in bookstores or catalogs, you could provide Grandma with a list of titles you’d like. Be specific, and offer to help her with the ordering, or perhaps even drive her to your favorite bookstore, or give out a copy of the following list: Twaddle-Free Books by Grade Level.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Catherine Levison (Washington resident, mother of five, and home schooling parent for over ten years) is a frequent speaker to parenting and home schooling audiences throughout the USA and Canada. She is the author of A Charlotte Mason Education: A How to Manual and the sequel, More Charlotte Mason Education. Visit Catherine online at: http://charlottemasoneducation.com/
(This reading list is my personal idea of twaddle-free reading–it does not necessarily represent the views of C. Levison, K. Andreola, P. Gardner or any other Charlotte Mason-related authors.)
Twaddle = dumbed down literature; absence of meaning
Living Books = books that are well-written and engaging–they absorb the reader–the narrative and characters “come alive”; living books are the opposite of cold, dry textbooks.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
The age designations for this list are only approximate. A child’s listening level will often be several grades higher than their personal reading level–feel free to choose books from an older list if you’re planning on reading aloud to your children. My husband and I began reading aloud to our children from chapter books (such as Charlotte’s Web) before their third birthdays. Don’t under-estimate your child’s ability to comprehend or listen to fairly advanced material.
I’ve included direct links to the books on Amazon.com so you can browse the reviews of other readers to get a better idea of which books would be appropriate for your home and/or classroom. Just click on the book’s title for further information. Amazon.com also offers free shipping on orders above a particular amount (usually $25), so if you have several books you’d like to order, it can be just as inexpensive to buy from Amazon as to order through your local bookstore. Plus you get the fun of having books delivered to your door — that’s always big excitement at my house! :-)
Preschool
Aesop’s Fables, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney
The Complete Tales of Peter Rabbit, by Beatrix Potter
The Original Mother Goose, illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright
Good Night Moon, by Margaret Wise Brown
The Runaway Bunny, by Margaret Wise Brown
The Story of Babar, the Little Elephant, by Jean de Brunhoff
The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle
Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak
Kindergarten / Grade 1
Amelia Bedelia, by Peggy Parish
Blueberries for Sal, by Robert McCloskey
Bread and Jam for Frances, by Russell Hoban
Billy and Blaze, by C.W. Anderson
A Chair for My Mother, by Vera B. Williams
Corduroy, by Don Freeman
The Courage of Sarah Noble, by Alice Dalgliesh
Curious George, by H.A. Rey
Frog and Toad All Year, by Arnold Lobel
Frog and Toad are Friends, by Arnold Lobel
Harry the Dirty Dog, by Gene Zion
Little Bear, by Else Homelund Minarik
The Little Engine that Could, by Watty Piper
The Little House, by Virginia Lee Burton
Madeline, by Ludwig Bemelmans
Make Way for Ducklings, by Robert McCloskey
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, by Virginia Lee Burton
The Snowy Day, by Ezra Jack Keats
Stone Soup, by Marcia Brown
Story of Ferdinand, by Munro Leaf
Story About Ping, by Marjorie Flack
Grade 2
The Boxcar Children, by Gertrude Chandler Warner
A Child’s Garden of Verses, by Robert Louis Stevenson (illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith)
Little House on the Prairie series, by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Railway Children, by E. Nesbit
The Random House Book of Fairy Tales, by Amy Ehrlich
Tikki Tikki Tembo, by Arlene Mosel
The Velveteen Rabbit, by Marjery Williams
Winnie-the-Pooh, by A.A. Milne
Grade 3
Baby Island, by Carol Ryrie Brink
Caddie Woodlawn, by Carol Ryrie Brink
Charlotte’s Web, by E.B. White
Misty of Chincoteague, by Marguerite Henry
(Assateague: Island of the Wild Ponies, by Andrea Jauck and Larry Points)
Owls in the Family, by Farley Mowat
Paul Bunyan, by Steven Kellogg
Pollyanna, by Eleanor H. Porter
Sarah, Plain and Tall, by Patricia MacLachlan
Squanto, Friend of the Pilgrims, by Clyde Robert Bulla
Story of Dr. Doolittle, by Hugh Lofting
Stuart Little, by E.B. White
Trumpet of the Swan, by E.B. White
Grade 4
Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl
The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis
The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien
King Arthur, by Roger Lancelyn Green
A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Little Lord Fauntleroy, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster
Pinocchio, by Carlo Collodi
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, by Howard Pyle
The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Story of Rolf and the Viking Bow, by Allen French
The Sword in the Stone, by T.H. White
Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain
Twenty-One Balloons, by William Pene du Bois
Redwall, by Brian Jacques
The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame
Grade 5
Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery
Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell
Cheaper by the Dozen, by Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr.
Gentle Ben, by Walt Morey
Heidi, by Johanna Spyri
Island of the Blue Dolphins, by Scott O’Dell
Johnny Tremain, by Esther Forbes
Lad: A Dog, by Albert Payson Terhune
Old Yeller, by Fred Gipson
Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe
The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Swiss Family Robinson, by Johann Wyss
Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson
Where the Red Fern Grows, by Wilson Rawls
The Witch of Blackbird Pond, by Elizabeth George Speare
Grade 6
Around the World in Eighty Days, by Jules Verne
The Call of the Wild, by Jack London
A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
The Jungle Book, by Rudyard Kipling
Just So Stories, by Rudyard Kipling
Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson
Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
The Lord of the Rings (Trilogy), by J.R.R. Tolkien
White Fang, by Jack London
The Yearling, by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Grade 7
Animal Farm, by George Orwell
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank
Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury
Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens
The Pilgrim’s Progress, by John Bunyan
The Prince and the Pauper, by Mark Twain
Sounder, by William H. Armstrong
Tanglewood Tales, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Grade 8
Christy, by Catherine Marshall
David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens
The Divine Comedy, by Dante
Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes
Emma, by Jane Austen
The Great Divorce, by C.S. Lewis
Paradise Lost, by John Milton
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Grade 9
1984, by George Orwell
Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
The Chosen, by Chaim Potok
Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte
Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo
Moby Dick, by Herman Melville
The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemmingway
The Pilgrim’s Regress, by C.S. Lewis
The Pit and the Pendulum, by Edgar Allen Poe
Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Grade 10 – 12
The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer
The City of God, by Augustine
The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens
Ben Hur: A Tale of Christ, by Lew Wallace
The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas
Guilliver’s Travels, by Jonathan Swift
Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Hinds’ Feet on High Places, by Hannah Hurnard
The Last of the Mohicans, by James Fenimore Cooper
The Odyssey, by Homer
The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Emmuska Orczy
The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis
Silas Marner, by George Eliot
The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis
The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
HOW TO ORDER BOOKS
Click on the book titles to order directly from Amazon.com–the world’s largest on-line bookstore. Many titles are offered at significantly reduced prices from the recommended list price (often at 10 – 30% off).
Many of the listed books also qualify for free shipping (providing that you meet minimum order requirements). With free shipping, the prices can be even less expensive than buying from a local bookstore … but you also have the added convenience of never even leaving the house! I personally get a thrill seeing the U.P.S driver walking up to my front door with a box full of brand new books.
Amazon.com also has a variety of payment options. You can even order using a personal check if you’re uncomfortable using credit cards or check cards online.
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