As I look back on a lifetime of homeschooling with my oldest (now 17) it is striking just how much books played a part in her education.

The hours and hours spent with living books were not wasted. She is a good writer. She expresses herself well. She is empathetic and has a wide knowledge of many time periods, places, and types of people.

I have NO DOUBT this is because of her exposure to beautiful literature.

A book isn’t just a book. It’s a pathway of sorts to other places, people, and things. The power of what we read and the digestion of what’s read is an awesome thing. In short, story itself is very powerful.

Continuing our series about laying down the rails in our children's education, let's address the topic of using living books.

Using Books to Shape Character

Social media has harnessed the power of the quote. This is a glimpse into the power of story.

“I think we dream so we don’t have to be apart for so long. If we’re in each other’s dreams, we can be together all the time.” —Winnie-the-Pooh

Tell me, when you read that did you have an emotional reaction? Maybe even just an “awww” moment? That’s the point.

We’re drawn into the story and made to feel all sorts of things. This power can be used for good in shaping the character of our children.

(One of my fondest memories of homeschooling is my then 4-year-old son waking early each morning so we could snuggle on the couch and read Winnie the Pooh stories together. I cherish that memory - I'm so glad I just let my kids be little!)

We can use the words of another—an author—to help us reach inside our children to challenge them, love them, and help them grow empathy.

Laying Down Rails With Living Books

If you want to effect change in another person through a living book, you have to know your books.

Living books often do the job of laying down many rails—kindness, empathy, respect for parents, and love of family.

I love the concept of healing stories as embraced by Thomas Jefferson Education homeschoolers. The ability to identify the degree of wholeness in your living book can help you know when to apply its story. And when I say apply, I’m visualizing applying as in a balm.

We want to be mindful to apply the right type of balm to match the development of the child and foster good character.

The Seven Loves of Literature

For our family, we chose to follow the Seven Loves of Literature, as taught by Rosalie Slater. These guidelines helped me to choose books that would work with me in laying down the rails that matched those loves, which are:

love for God
love for God’s written word
love for home and family
love for individual Christian character
love for the Gospel as it’s planted throughout the world
love of country
love of learning

Applying Loves of Literature as Rails for Character

Everything begins with God. Fostering a love for God in our children includes our choices in reading. Does the reading choice honor our Christian conviction regarding God?

Rail: Love for God

God’s Word, the Bible, is our standard. It contains all types of literature and makes an ideal living book by which to shape character. It even makes this claim for itself! “The Word of God is living and active…” (Hebrews 4:12).

Rail: Love for God’s Word

The home and family is more than a launch pad. It’s more than what we come home to. It’s a domestic church and the first republic.

The stories we choose to enlighten our children’s minds and form their disposition should honor the home and family. This is especially true as our children get older and their stories may become more “bent” (referring to the Thomas Jefferson Education model).

Since we know how powerful a story truly is, we’d be wise to embrace stories that honor home and hearth.

Rail: Love of Home and Family

Like snowflakes and thumbprints, every person is unique. Their rightful expression of their person is a gift from the Lord. Learning to honor that gift and use it to serve God’s purpose for oneself is a key to happiness.

Choosing stories that demonstrate how God uses men and nations, and their Christian individuality, to further His Gospel purpose is powerful. They have the power to convert, to convict, and to encourage.

As far as character, reading about brave missionaries, leaders who stood for truth, and ordinary men and women who lived through adversity while trusting in God create the rails of empathy, persistence, and trust in the Lord.

Rail: Love for Christian Individuality

Love of the Gospel of God and its purpose in the world, along with a love of country, can work together to create the rails of understanding. So often we think of missions as the other side of the world. But in fact, we’re called to be on mission right where we are. Jesus himself reminded us that our neighbor is the one we have mercy towards (Luke 10:37).

Our neighborhood is huge!

Choosing living books that focus on heroes of the Christian faith can have a powerful impact when laying down rails.

Rail: Love for the Gospel and Country

It’s popular in children’s books today to “hate school” and despise learning. Rather than plant that seed, choose books that show characters who love to learn and make sacrifices to do so. Stories such as Carry On, Mr. Bowditch and The Door in the Wall are perfect examples.

Rail: Love of Learning

Using the power of story and the loves of literature can be a tool to create rails. These rails will not only bless your family during their reading but also for life.

I can't stress enough to you the importance of making beautiful living books the cornerstone of your homeschool - and really of your children's lives.

One could even argue that as adults we also need these same rails laid down on an ongoing basis, yes?

Beautiful, living books are a GOOD THING.

Suggested Resources

To Kill a Mockingbird A Wrinkle in Time: 50th Anniversary Commemorative Edition (A Wrinkle in Time Quintet Book 1)The Great Gatsby 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Wordsworth Classics)Pride and Prejudice: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Dover Thrift Editions)The Count of Monte Cristo (Bantam Classics)Where the Red Fern Grows The Swiss Family Robinson (Puffin Classics)A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Perennial Classics)Moby Dick (Wordsworth Classics)Winnie-the-Pooh: Classic Gift Edition Little Women (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (Penguin Threads) by Alcott, Louisa May De Luxe edition (2012)A Family Program for Reading Aloud: P.1 and 2 Carry On Mr. Bowditch Teacher Guide Pinocchio Teacher Guide The Family And The Nation: Biblical Childhood Carry On, Mr. Bowditch The Healing Power of Stories A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the Twenty-First Century A Thomas Jefferson Education Home Companion Leadership Education: The Phases of Learning

Do you neglect nature study because it is something you don't feel comfortable teaching your children?

Maybe you didn't grow up with a knowledge of our natural world, or maybe the thought of identifying all of those outdoor things is overwhelming to you.

Never fear! Nature Study is enjoyable and rewarding, and it can be SO easy! Summer is the perfect time to start this with your children, but if you're stumbling on this post and it's not summer - you can start nature study ANY TIME!

“If possible, it is good for the teacher (or parent) to keep a nature notebook, too; it is a life we live together”

— (For the Children’s Sake, Susan Schaeffer Macaulay, p. 135).

While we're using our summer break to master elements of our child's character in order to make our school year easier, it fits perfectly that mom will work on her own little flaws, too. (you're welcome)

In our Laid Back Summer Planner, we set out to lay down the rails of perseverance, observation, and truthfulness. I've never read a more accurate description of a mom's duties towards her family than these!

Nature Study as Revealer

"..when children are old enough to understand that science itself is in a sense sacred, and demands some sacrifice, all the common information they have been gathering until then, and the habits of observation they have acquired, will form an excellent ground work for a scientific education. In the meantime let them consider the lilies of the field and fowls of the air." PNEU article, Dowton

Nature is God's textbook. We only need to look around to begin our study, and what a rich study it is. With each season, we are given new elements to consider and ponder. Even the passing of the seasons is a lesson to us. The observation of the world around us, especially in our tech soaked world, is a gift. It reveals to us God's power, might, care, concern, and Providence.

Consider this simple "weed" - Queen Anne's Lace (dacus carota) - it's so delicate and can inspire so much learning, wonder, and creativity.

Rail: Observation.

Nature Study as Relational

“It is infinitely well worth the mother’s while to take some pains every day to secure, in the first place, that her children spend hours daily amongst rural and natural objects; and, in the second place, to infuse into them, or rather, to cherish in them, the love of investigation..." Charlotte Mason

I'm sure Ms. Mason in her use of the word "pain" had in mind the tendency we have to stay indoors. I don't know about you, but sometimes my children have to be prodded outside.

The wisdom in this rail is twofold. First, we're establishing a habit of "first things" for our family. First, we finish our lessons, then we spend time outside. And we first tend to lessons, then we tend to "play."

Getting our children out-of-doors and into nature affords the opportunity to observe and persevere. Habits take perseverance.

As homeschool moms, we have the rare opportunity as teacher-mom to study alongside our children in nature. And we get to observe their observations, experiencing the joys they experience. Creating these memories lays down the rail of relationship. We create relationship with the things we study and with one another. Further, creating this relational habit is a character rail that serves both us and our children for the school year and all of life.

Rail: Perseverance

Side note: Some of our favorite nature studies are the No Sweat Nature Studies -- have you seen them?

Nature Study as Relative

"The child who learns his science from a text-book, though he go to Nature for illustrations, and he who gets his information from object lessons, has no chance of forming relations with things as they are, because his kindly obtrusive teacher makes him believe that to know about things is the same as knowing them personally..." Charlotte Mason

I'm going to give you the rail right away for this one.

Rail: Truthfulness

Webster's 1828 defines relative as, "Not absolute or existing by itself; considered as belonging to or respecting something else" and "That which has relation to something else."

Nature Study is a study in truthfulness relative to the information we gather. It isn't truth to teach theory alone. Children long for the experience of forming relations with the things they study. To make them their own.

God's Truths aren't relative, the way we define them in philosophy. But, they are something we learn to know as they are revealed to us through our own living. We learn to walk in certain shoes to give us insight and empathy.

Nature is the same way, and why it's such a wonderful textbook.

It's one thing to be taught the life-cycle. It's another to see it for yourself and "form relations with things as they are."

Alongside our children, we can internalize truths we've only read about as we witness them for ourselves. That's powerful!