10 Favorite Books on Scribd

Is reading a large part of your life?

Around here, reading reigns supreme. It seems like we’ve had every kind of book membership there can be - Audible, Chirp, Book of the Month… We also love our library cards and our Libby App.

I must say, however, that our favorite resource for reading is Scribd.

If you don’t know about Scribd I encourage you to look into it. For a home educating family it is an especially good investment.

---

What is Scribd?

Put very simply, Scribd is a way for you to access millions of ebooks, audiobooks, magazines… plus free premium services.

Read What is Scribd? if you’d like to find out exactly what it is!

Our family loves it for a few very simple (but important!) reasons:

1. We pay ONE price ($9.99) each month for UNLIMITED ebooks and audiobooks. You can access as many books as you want! (It isn’t like some services where you can only have one audiobook out at a time or where you have to amass “credits” for your books.)

2. Everyone in our family can share the account (Scribd tells you that account sharing covers up to 4 people) - and they have a generous offering of children’s/middle grades/teen books as well.

3. It works on IOS, Android, and Kindle Fire - I love the Scribd app on my iPad, but we also access Scribd on our Kindle Fire.

4. It is VERY easy to use! I love to highlight while I read and Scribd makes it very easy to do that - and then I can go back at any time and access those notes.

5. Scribd has SHEET MUSIC! (I am currently working on the music from Schindler’s List)

What else (besides books) comes with Scribd?

Music, podcasts, sheet music, and other documents are available through Scribd.

Additionally, there are Scribd Perks - our favorite of those is Curiosity Stream, which has thousands of science, technology, nature, and history documentaries.. This is such a valuable addition especially if you are a homeschooling family!

---

10 Favorite Books Available on Scribd

I looked back through my books from the past couple of years and picked out 10 favorites. I could have given you a TON more - I had to exercise great restraint in keeping the list to 10!

• Beauty: a Retelling of Beauty & The Beast by Robin McKinley

  This was a Young Adult retelling of Beauty & The Beast - which I enjoyed listening to on my own. It would be a wonderful read-aloud for your middle and high school children, and perfect for a study of this fairytale and the different ways it has been told over hundreds of years.

• The Incredible Winston Browne by Sean Dietrich

  If you don’t know about Sean Dietrich, you are missing out on a Southern gem! After I read May the Circle be Unbroken (also available on Scribd), I knew I needed to read more. HIs wit, wisdom, and gentle way of writing about times gone by in the South is comforting.

• This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger

  Everything William Kent Kreuger writes is wonderful. This Tender Land, which takes place in the Midwest and is about four orphans on a life-changing journey during the Great Depression. It will pull at your heartstrings. Kreuger writes with such a strong sense of place. He also a series of mysteries (the first of which is Iron Lake )that are available on Scribd.

• The Bird in the Tree by Elizabeth Goudge

  The British author Elizabeth Goudge, was new to me last year. The Bird in the Tree is the first in the Eliot Family Trilogy. I’ve read the second and hope to get to the third very soon! Prepare to highlight A LOT and soak in every word Elizabeth Goudge writes. There is a beautiful wisdom in this family story that I just loved.

• The London House by Katherine Reay

  This book was a new release last year. Katherine Reay is one of my favorite authors right now and I enjoyed the London House so much. It takes us on a journey through Britain’s WWII spy network. I learned so much history in this book and was quite caught up in the story, too!

• Once Upon a Wardrobe by Patti Callahan

  This was my favorite book of 2021! Once Upon a Wardrobe takes us into the world of CS Lewis and the creation of Narnia - and while it is historical fiction, Patti Callahan does a wonderful job of creating a beautiful fictitious story that is grounded in a lot of truth. A lovely letter from C.S. Lewis’ son at the end of the book ties it all up with a beautiful bow.

• Jane of Lantern Hill by L.M. Montgomery

  What can I say? The first sentence of the book is indicative of the beautiful writing that continues throughout!

  “Gay street, so Jane always thought, did not live up to its name. It was, she felt certain, the most melancholy street in Toronto...though, to be sure, she had not seen a great many of the Toronto streets in her circumscribed comings and goings of eleven years.”

  I needed something sweet and reassuring last year when my father was in hospice, and this book provided that.

• I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

  In my quest to read more classics, I Capture the Castle was recommended to me. DId you know that Dodie Smith also wrote 101 Dalmations? (Well, this book is nothing like that - ha! I read an article that said, “Once you read it, you fall in love with it, and from then on you’re part of a secret club, self-selecting and wildly enthusiastic.”

• That Distant Land by Wendell Berry

  I am a HUGE Wendell Berry fan. Hannah Coulter is one of my all-time favorite books. That Distant Land includes all of Wendell Berry’s short stories published up until 2004, so it gives you a wonderful introduction to the author in bite-size pieces. I listened to this and enjoyed the short stories that helped build my attention for audiobooks.

• Take Back Your Family by Jefferson Bethke

  My husband (who probably uses Scribd even more than me!) recommended I read Take Back Your Family. It offers ideas on how to build a healthy family and create a lasting legacy. I’ve recommended this book to several people who have all agreed that after reading it they’ve thought about it for a long time.

---

Try Scribd Free!

I love that you can give Scribd a try for 30 days.

After your 30 day trial you can join for just $9.99/month and cancel at any time.

*Full disclosure: Homegrown Learners receives free Scribd time whenever someone subscribes.

You might also like:

Reading Widely and Well

2021 Reading Year in Review

How to Stay the Course with a Classical Homeschool Education

This post is about staying the course with a Classical Education.

The author, my long-time friend Betsy, has educated her children all the way through in Classical Conversations. I love, however, the way she writes about CC and how it has been a guide and a springboard for educating her children to the best of each of their abilities.

Classical Conversations isn’t your master - it is your guide.

Because I have blogged so much about our experiences in Classical Conversations, I wanted to bring you this perspective and voice from a homeschooling mother who has so much to offer about homeschooling in the Classical tradition.

(Take it away, Betsy!)

I never intended to homeschool.

We stumbled into it because competitive gymnastics threatened to take all of my son’s free time. (Then we dropped gymnastics and kept homeschooling.)

Thirteen years later, we’re still at it. This year I’m graduating my second child from Classical Conversations—my son started in Essentials, and my daughter at the beginning in Foundations. My youngest started at 4 and she’s currently in Challenge 2. I am so thankful God led us to homeschool with Classical Conversations. It hasn’t been easy, and there have been many times that I wanted to quit.

I’ve learned along the way that I just have to keep learning not only what a classical education looks like but also how God has perfectly designed my children. The fruit of those two pursuits has been worth the effort.

---

Educate Yourself

The beautiful thing about homeschooling is that you don’t have to know everything to homeschool your children.

But, you can’t stay there! The good news is that working through the material with your student will also provide an excellent education for you.

Curriculum is a Tool, Not the Boss

One of the easiest ways to get derailed in homeschooling is by being ruled by a ruthless curriculum. Well, that may be a little harsh, but in mid-January, some of the materials you gushed over in August might feel like they’re turning on you.

Your student is unique! It’s helpful to remember that a curriculum is made for a generic course of study. Use the curriculum as a tool to accomplish what you want to teach your student. This gives so much freedom to follow interests and curiosities as you go.

It’s really helpful to have the framework of a curriculum so that you know what to study, but not feel tied to complete 100% of the text. Public schools don’t use textbooks that way, so feel free to teach your children even if it deviates from the prescribed plan along the way.

A Classical Conversations Guide is Not Perfection

I have loved that Classical Conversations has opened so many doors in educational pursuits that I would have never chosen on my own. But, I will say that I did not cry when Covid shut down Mock Trial for my youngest.

The beauty of homeschooling and pursuing a classical education is that you can scale the work to educate a human and not produce another perfect classical student—that kind of goes against the premise of a classical education!

It felt so much easier in the Foundations years to do my own thing at home because it was just memory work. Once we entered the Challenge years, I struggled at first with having a vision of my own without just adopting the guide’s vision. It took me a couple of years to start asking myself important questions like:

• What is the heart of this assignment?

• What tools do I want to equip my child with so they can be a lifelong
  learner?

• What is the first layer of learning in this skill?

We review ideas so many times in Foundations, but it’s harder to see the layered learning in the Challenge years.

While it is important to work with excellence, every skill introduced in CC comes back around again. The industrial model of education says that you have to “get it” on your first try because that’s the only time you’ll ever have the opportunity to learn it.

Classical education works in layers. Just keep adding another layer of learning until mastery. Andrew Pudewa often quotes the Japenese proverb, “Ten thousand times and then begins understanding.” We need more than just one pass at an idea to master it. So, let the first time be the first pass and let go of the expectations of perfection.

Seek Out Multiple Sources

The freedom for me to deviate from the curriculum or a Classical Conversations guide came from hearing from multiple voices on the subject.

• I loved Leigh Bortins’ books like The Core but it was just the beginning of my own education on the subject.

• The Great Homeschool Convention’s Classical Homeschooling Track opened my eyes to a world of other amazing resources for learning about classical education.

• I could sit and listen to Andrew Kern’s contemplation of nature and be inspired to cultivate wisdom and virtue in my children.

• Martin Cothran would give me a list of good books to read and inspire me to read outside of the CC Challenge booklist.

• Andrew Pudewa encouraged me to let my youngest read with her ears

• Christopher Perrin and Sarah Mackenzie opened my eyes to new aspects of classical education as they taught on the topic of scholé in learning and Teaching from Rest

While Leigh Bortins gave me a strong foundation in classical education, the bigger picture of the classical tradition empowered me to become an artist as an educator.

Learn Your Student

While it’s great to have a good curriculum, we train humans, not robots. Every student will respond a little differently to the material.

There are so many variables that impact the overall education that no two students will have the same experience. And there is something very beautiful about that. So, it’s important to learn your student.

Look for What Gets Them Excited

Teenagers can be both easy and difficult to read. They can look disinterested in everything, or interested in a new idea every minute. I have found it helpful to watch what they do more than what they say.

In my son’s sophomore year, he was passionate about becoming an eye surgeon like his grandpa. He loved how his grandpa was helping restore sight in medical missions. As I watched my son work through his schoolwork that year, I noticed that he put the least amount of effort into Biology.

Interesting.

A loss in the family that year distracted me from being as engaged in his learning as I had been in the past. So if I just begged, “Will you please just work on something?!” I noticed that he always picked up his Latin
books.

Strange.

So we had a talk. I told him about what I had noticed in his preference for language over science. Through conversation, we discovered that he loved the idea of restoring sight, but maybe that could be done with language in a spiritual sense and not just with science in a physical sense.

This discovery gave him permission to fully pursue his passion which led to us starting Latin with Andy, an online learning library of resources to help others learn Latin.

Push Them Where You Can

In creating this Latin resource, I made Andy go back through two Latin textbooks he’d already finished. Am I a mean mom or what?

While the Classical Conversations guide can sometimes assign too much work, there are other times when the workload is not enough. If Andy really wanted to pursue language, he needed those ten thousand repetitions that Andrew Pudewa talked about. I required more of my son and he flourished.

You can’t push them in every subject equally though. At least I didn’t feel like I could and still maintain a relationship with my children in the end.

Scaling the work in some areas to give time for excelling in others is a great way to cater the curriculum to your child.

Feel Free to Deviate

My girls didn’t have the same affection for Latin that my son displayed—and it’s okay! They learned a lot from him, which made their Latin studies easier. My girls lean more toward artistic pursuits than academic ones.

---

We use Classical Conversations to keep us anchored and accountable for reading, writing, and arithmetic, and then we’ve felt the freedom to pursue painting or songwriting—and my artistic soon-to-be-graduate also got the presidential scholarship and an additional art scholarship to study graphic design at her college of choice.

It doesn’t have to be an either/or situation.

The heart of a classical education is to produce liberated thinkers: ones free to flourish in life because they are free to think and discuss with wisdom and virtue.

Betsy Strauss is an unexpected homeschooler and blogger mother of three, who is in a relationship with a sweet man for life. She loves reading books, drinking coffee, and learning anything with her kids.

You might also like:

Foundations Memory Work: It Really IS Enough

Creating a Geography Table in Your Homeschool