Free Books

As a home school mom I like my children to read the best books possible. I remember going to a home school conference many years ago and hearing the term "twaddle books". What is that? Here is Charlotte Mason's (British educator) definition: Twaddle = dumbed down literature; absence of meaning.

Instead we are supposed to read living books. Charlotte Mason's definition again: Living Books = books that are well-written and engaging---they absorb the reader---the narrative and characters "come alive"; living books are the opposite of cold, dry textbooks.

Well, in our home we read what some may consider twaddle, mostly living and occasionally even dry boring books. Ask Rachel about the history books she reads in our Robinson curriculum.

Now for the free books I promised. I heard about the first website from an overly excited non-twaddle home schooling mom. However, I found her obnoxious, and disruptive so I chose to ignore any of the advice she offered that day! But as the years went by, the book shelves are filling up, and occasionally I can't find the book my child really wants to read. So I remembered non-twaddle mom's advice and turned to gutenberg.org, and more recently, booksgoogle.com Here you can find a huge assortment of (non-twaddle) books, which are no longer in print, and whose copyrights are expired . They are free for you to download, print, etc. We print our non-twaddle books on a Brother 5250DN. It is capable of printing duplex which saves a lot of paper. After printing I place them in 3 ring binders, the white ones from Costco. They have a pocket in front that you can place your title page in. Ok, it's not like holding a real book, but my kids don't seem to care! If they spill on it, leave it outside, or whatever - just reprint the pages you need to. When we're done with the book we take it out of the binder and store it in a box. I guess in time we may have a box problem. But for now they all fit nicely in one box.

What do we print? Bret's favorite books are Tom Swift books by Victor Appleton, Garret loves Arthur Scott Bailey. and Rachel has read most of the 5 Little Peppers series. There are more, but my post is getting too long.

Happy Reading!