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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.

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Reading Widely and Well

2021 Reading Year in Review

2021: An Intentional Reading Year In Review

Time spent reading is precious .

In 2021 I resolved to cultivate a more intentional reading life.

I find it very stifling to choose what books I will read in a given period of time - but I also acknowledge that some reading guidelines are helpful as I seek to make the most of the reading time I do have.

Developing 5 guiding principles for my reading life in 2021 seemed to work well, and in my year-end review, I’d like to revisit those principles and highlight my favorite books from the year at the same time.

Full disclosure: I am not naturally an organized person. I am a creative at heart. My 2021 reading life was an exercise in becoming a bit more organized, but allowing myself to explore those “reading rabbit holes” I so desperately love.

2021 Reading Year in Review

Let’s go through the goals I made nearly a year ago - I’ll give a report on how I did with the goal, and then give you some books from that category I enjoyed.

Homegrown Book Picks

Hang on, and get out your TBR list! But first…

Follow Along This Year!

First, if you’d like to see what I’m reading - and everything I read in 2021 - you can connect with me in several ways:

You’ll be noticing more from me this year under “Homegrown Book Picks”, so I hope you follow along!



Including More Nonfiction

A few people who know me well assured me that if I found the RIGHT nonfiction, I would love it, and they were correct. I discovered an entirely new genre to me (or at least I discovered a name for it) - Narrative Nonfiction.

Each month I did try to include at least one nonfiction read - and surprisingly I began to gravitate toward MORE nonfiction. The following five were favorites this year:

Additionally, I had a few other nonfiction favorites. Each of these broadened my mind and inspired me to consider new and interesting ideas.

This Beautiful Truth, by Sarah Clarkson, truly spoke to me this year. My dad passed away in March and her words help me to see God’s beauty in even the most difficult circumstances surrounding my dad’s death.

Make Time for Middle-Grade Novels

I realized that I’ve truly been missing middle grades novels! Now that my youngest is nearly finished with high school we’re not reading middle-grade books aloud (although we do still read aloud!). In 2021 I sought to include middle-grade novels and share about them with the Homegrown Learners community.

One author I continued to fall in love with in 2021 is Michael Morpurgo. I gifted An Elephant in the Garden to a couple of teens I know, who loved it just as much as I did! Morpurgo’s books are poignant and easy to read. I plan to read more of them in 2022.

I read many more middle-grade books in 2021, but these are the standouts:

Give Me All The Historical Fiction

In 2021 I knew I needed to broaden my reading horizons a bit, but I also didn’t want to give up my favorite genre, historical fiction. So, I decided to just embrace the genre and take in as much as I could during the year.

I’m truly a historical fiction nerd, and I embrace that.

Hands down, my favorite book of the year was Once Upon a Wardrobe, by Patti Callahan.

This book was truly a magical escape. I read an advanced copy via Netgalley, and then after the book was published a dear friend purchased a signed copy for me as a gift. What a treasure!

I also seemed to read a lot of books based in Europe during the first half of the 20th century. I learned quite a bit about London society during WWII.

2022 will certainly include a lot of historical fiction, and I’m hoping to find nonfiction match-ups to help me learn more about topics I’m interested in. For example, I just finished reading The Woman Before Wallis this past week and now I’m on a hunt to find nonfiction books about Thelma and Gloria Morgan (Vanderbilt).

Tackle Those Classics

In my post from earlier this year, I wrote about trying to read a classic each month. I didn’t reach that goal, but I will continue to strive to read more classics in 2022.

And, what exactly is the definition of a classic? According to the dictionary, a classic is a work that is:

judged over a period of time to be of the highest quality and outstanding of its kind.

I was delighted to discover Elizabeth Goudge in 2021 - and loved The Bird in the Tree. I copied nearly four pages of quotes into my book journal from that book alone!

Madeleine L’Engle also occupied a place in my heart. Her Crosswick Journals, which are personal reflections on her faith and family, were a balm to my soul. I gifted A Circle of Quiet (the first of the journals) this year because it meant so much to me.

Favorite classics this year:

Allow Room For Escape

From my blog post earlier this year:

I do enjoy reading for escape, so I will be choosing one “escape” book each month.

These books will be “just because” books - but I want to be very careful that they are free of foul language, explicit sex scenes, and social agendas.

This turned out to be an interesting goal. The older I get the more discerning I become. I want the books I read to feed my soul and intrigue me in some way. It’s hard to find “best sellers” that are free of sex scenes and social agendas. I found myself steering away from best sellers in 2021 (although you will see there are a few I really did like).

This last “escape” category was a little bit of a catch-all for me in 2021. There was definitely some fluff in the category, but also some best-selling literary fiction that I did enjoy.

Two authors that stood out for me this year were Sean Dietrich (Sean of the South) and Katherine Reay. I will be reading more of their books in 2022.

A BIG Goal for 2022

I want to continue the intentional reading I pursued in 2021, so those five categories/goals remain the same.

There is, however, one big hairy goal I am making.

Are you ready? (The people closest to me are shouting hooray but doubt I can do it.)

I will not buy a book in 2022.

and just in case I didn’t state that clearly…

I will not buy a book in 2022.

So, how then will I obtain books?

  • Read from my extensive stash at home!

  • Use the library and my Libby app.

  • Borrow from friends or find at The Little Free Library

  • Use my Scribd subscription — which is AMAZING! (If you want to try it you can read for 30 days free using this link. I can have as many audio and eBooks going as I want at one time!)

I have a crazy amount of books in my home, and I am looking forward to reading through them. Any whims that I have for reading will have to be satisfied without spending money on books - which my husband assures me will save our family a significant amount of money - and space!

I hope you have enjoyed this 2021 reading wrap-up and recommendation post.

I’d love to know if you had a favorite (s) book in 2021.

Let me know what it was in the comments below!

You might also like:

12 Favorite Books in 2021 (from guest contributor, Allison)

How to Set Reading Goals with Children