Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Unschooly Books


Come on - add your titles to the list.....


The Secret Garden

The Little Princess


The Adventures of Pippi Logstocking

The Swallows and Amazons series


To Kill a Mockingbird (Kids learn so much from life around them)

Whalerider
Mary Poppins
Heidi


Nims Island

Bridge to Terabithia


Surviving the Applewhites
A Vicarage Family ( and other similar books) by Noel Streetfield ( she wrote many)
101 Dalmations by Dodie Smith – also I Capture the Castle by the same author
Vanload to Venice – Verily Anderson
The Saturdays by Elisabeth Enright
From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler by E. Konigsburg
My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell ( not fiction but autobiographical)

5 comments:

Faith said...

How about the book My Side of the Mountain? Also, Hatchet, although, in that one the boy HAS to learn to survive, whereas in the first book the boy is really following his bliss in living out in the wild.

I also love the book Linnets and Valerians by Elizabeth Goudge The children are homeschooled by their grandfather who used to run a Latin school. So they learn at home with him, EXCEPT there are magical, mysterious things happening so the children and the grandfather keep finding reasons to take a day or two off to go solve the mystery! Her book The Little White Horse is unschooly in that vain.

Another great book is by Oliver Sacks. I can't find my copy right now but I think it is called A Chemical Boyhood. He talks about how much he hated school but how his parents let him pursue his passion for chemistry at home. It is a wonderful book! Probably for teens.

Faith said...

that would be 'unschooly in that vein" not vain. LOL!

Anonymous said...

"Little Women" and "Little Men" by Louisa May Alcott

"The Year of Miss Agnes" by Kirkpatrick Hill

"Understood Betsy" by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Hopewell said...

Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield.
Very "life as learning" theme and a good read, too.

Enbrethiliel said...

+JMJ+

Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink was the first to come to mind.

There's also Madeleine L'Engle's series on the Austin family: Meet the Austins, The Moon by Night, The Young Unicorns, A Ring of Endless Light and Troubling a Star. Her other YA novels are amazing, too.

I suppose Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder also counts, even though it's also a philosophy textbook in disguise!