I've done several posts on combining Mystery of History with Sonlight--we really enjoy Sonlight's literature selections and some of the biographies, but I often find myself drawn to other spine texts. When it came time for my oldest to do Government, we decided to go with Notgrass (which he really enjoyed). Not wanting to miss Sonlight's literature, we again added in many of their selections as readers and read-alouds. We did this his Junior year, while we were waiting for the last volume of Mystery of History to come out. My daughter will use it for her her senior year (and I'll have to come up with some different read-alouds when she does it, since she's heard these). Here's what we did (and how we liked the books):
For Read-Alouds:
1 – Scarlet Letter, (My kids enjoyed this as a read-aloud and thought Pearl was laugh-out-loud funny--which made me ham her up a bit. Seriously, they made me like this book instead of just considering it "good to eat" like veggies, LOL!)
4 – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,
10 – The Day They Came to Arrest the Book, (Good follow-up to Huck Finn--I think this might have been removed from 430)
13 – My Antonia, (Enjoyed when I was a teen too)
16 – Mama’s Bank Account, (Notgrass suggestion, delightful)
19 – Best Short Stories of O. Henry, (eh, we read a few, not our fave)
22 – Dry Divide, (excellent)
25 – Snow Treasure, (Core H I think...anyway, it was fun to read aloud)
28 – Escape from Warsaw, (ditto)
31 – Death of a Salesman, (talk about a totally depressing play with almost no redeeming characters--one minor character, and the possibility of one character becoming redeemable...but I was glad to read it because I knew a man just like the main character, who also met the same end for the same reason...so I found it deeply profound despite my daughter's protests of "why would you read such a book to us?!")
34 – The View from Saturday, (profound, funny, sometimes sad, wonderful. Might have been moved to 100--I'd do it either way)
Readers:
1 – Dug Down Deep, (book I added, pretty good)
4 – The Giver, (well-liked)
6 – Mark Twain: Humorous Stories and Sketches, (Notgrass suggestion--I did it so my son would have a reader by Mark Twain since I was doing Huck Finn as a RA, but the stories were very enjoyable)
8 – The Portable Edgar Allen Poe, (My poetry-hating son LOVED Poe!)
10 – In His Steps, (I think this was a Notgrass suggestion...powerful book worth reading)
14 – Our Town, (Classic play, worth reading, enjoyable)
16 – Bud, Not Buddy, (Son really enjoyed this book)
19 – The Chosen, (excellent)
23 – Evidence Not Seen (excellent)
26 – Going Solo, (Core 200...son enjoyed)
29 – Black Like Me, (powerful book, worth reading)
33 – The Outsiders, (again a powerful book--one of my son's favorites of the year)
