To develop a life-long love of reading good books is the desire of the classical educator, parent or otherwise. To do this, according to Charlotte Mason, one needs to provide lots of opportunity to experience “living books”. These will help to provide the individual with a shared culture, a background of allegory and a knowledge of past people and events that have shaped where civilization is today and where it may be heading into the future. And for the Christian, all of this needs to be done in a context where conversation can take place, and the light of Scripture can be brought to bear on all knowledge and experience.
With this in mind, the goal for all of the Literature classes at Grace Academy is twofold: to support the History component of our humanities core by providing pupils with the opportunity to gain an in-depth experience of the time period and people being studied (through focused primary sources, excellent biographies or good historical fiction) and to give the pupils the chance to read and examine the more general classics of literature, great books, stories and poems both old and new, carefully chosen to be academically and developmentally appropriate at each level. Our desire is to engage our pupil’s intellect and heart through the particular selection of literature and to encourage a true “meeting of minds” over the material through class discussion with the tutor. We want our children to love the written word, enjoy the age-old stories of humankind, stretch their imaginations, and reflect on how the themes and ideas do or don’t coincide with our understanding from God’s Word about man, his purpose, and his relationship with people, the world, and God himself.
The books on the following lists are those from which we will choose each year’s primary reading selections, (we just can’t do them all, alas!) depending on the pupils we have, their current reading levels, and whether or not a majority have already read or studied some of the titles.
