Homeschool Reading List - 12th Grade Modern History

Here is the reading list I put together for my 12th grader. That year they were studying modern American history (1877 to the present) so quite a few of these titles fit with that time period. You'll also notice quite a few poetry selections just for exposure. (+ means any title by that author) Enjoy!

Title	Author
1984	Orwell, George
Against All Hope	Valladares, Armando
All Creatures Great and Small +	Herriot, James
All the King's Men	Warren, Robert Penn
American Leonardo	Mabee, Carleton
Brave New World	Huxley, Aldous
Diary of a Country Priest +	Bernanos, George
Divergent +	Roth, Veronica
Dream Thief	Lawhead, Stephen
Every Living Thing	Herriot, James
For Whom the Bell Tolls	Hemingway, Ernest
Gone with the Wind	Mitchell, Margaret
Great Gatsby	Fitzgerald, F. Scott
Green Mansions +	Hudson, William H
Heart of Darkness +	Conrad, Joseph
In This Sign	Greenberg, Joanne
Inherit the Wind	Lawrence, Jerome
Invisible Man	Ellison, Robert
Looking Backward	Bellamy, Edward
Lord of the Flies	Golding, William
Lord Peter +	Sayers, Dorothy
Master and Commander	O'Brian, Patrick
Murder on the Orient Express	Christie, Agatha
My Antonia	Cather, Willa
Night	Wiesel, Elie
Of Mice and Men	Steinbeck, John
Old Creole Days +	Cable, George Washington
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich +	Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek	Dillard, Annie
Poems	Lewis, C.S.
Poems	Keats, John
Poems	Byron, Lord
Poems	Shelley, Percy  Blythe
Poems	Scott, Sir Walter
Poems	Wordsworth, William
Poems of Coleridge	Symons
Ramona	Jackson, Helen Hunt
Scott's Last Expedition	Scott, Robert
Short Stories and Tales, Complete	Poe, Edgar Allan
The Age of Innocence	Wharton, Edith
The Caine Mutiny	Wouk, Herman
The Catcher in the Rye	Salinger, J.D.
The Contender	Lipsyte, Robert
The Cross and the Switchblade	Wilkerson, David
The Cruel Sea	Monsarrat, Nicholas
The Death of Ivan Ilyitch	Tolstoy, Leo
The Fairy Tale of My Life	Anderson, Hans Christian
The Giver	Lowry, Lois
The Good Earth	Buck, Pearl S
The Grapes of Wrath	Steinbeck, John
The Man Who Was Called Thursday	Chesterton, G.K.
The Necklace and Other Stories +	DeMaupassant, Guy
The Nine Tailors	Sayers, Dorothy
The Old Man and the Sea	Hemingway, Ernest
The Power and the Glory +	Greene, Graham
The Trial	Kafka, Franz
Things Fall Apart	Achebe, Chinua
To Kill a Mockingbird	Lee, Harper
To the Lighthouse	Woolf, Virginia
Unbroken	Hillenbrand, Laura
Walden	Thoreau, Henry David
War and Peace	Tolstoy, Leo
War of the Worldviews	DeMar, Gary
Witness	Chambers, Whittaker

Homeschool Reading List - 11th Grade Early U.S. History & American Literature

Here is the reading list I put together for my 11th grader. That year they were studying American history up to 1877 so quite a few of these titles fit with that time period. (the + means any title by that author) Enjoy!

Title	Author
A Death in the Family	Agee, James
A Doll's House	Ibsen, Henrik
A Handful of Dust	Waugh, Evelyn
A Single Pebble	Hersey, John
A Town Like Alice	Shute, Nevil
Abraham Lincoln	Sandburg, Carl
All Quiet on the Western Front	Remarque, Erich
Amazing Adventures of Father Brown	Chesterton, G.K.
Americanization of Edward Bok	Bok, Edward
And Quiet Flows the Don	Sholokhov, Mikhail
Babbitt	Lewis, Sinclair
Bleak House	Dickens, Charles
Borden of Yale	Taylor, Mrs. Howard
Captain Cook's Explorations	Cook, James
Charterhouse of Parma +	Stendahl
Crime and Punishment	Dostoyevsky, Fyodor
Cripps, the Carrier	Blackmore, Richard
Darkness at Noon	Koestler, Arthur
Darwin's Black Box	Behe, Michel
David Copperfield	Dickens, Charles
Death Comes for the Archbishop	Cather, Willa
Diary and Autobiography of John Adams	ed. Butterfield, L.
Doctor Zhivago	Pasternak, Boris
Education of Henry Adams	Adams, Henry
Emma	Austen, Jane
Erewhon	Butler, Samuel
Fathers and Sons +	Turgenev, Ivan
Four Voyages to the New World	Columbus, Christopher
Frankenstein	Shelley, Mary
From Basic to Baghdad
How I Found Livingstone	Stanley, Sir Henry Morton
Les Miserables	Hugo, Victor
Life of George Washington	Irving, Washington
Life on the Mississippi	Twain, Mark
Little Novels of Sicily	Verga, Giovanni
Look Homeward, Angel	Wolfe, Thomas
Lord Jim	Conrad, Joseph
Martin Chuzzlewitt	Dickens, Charles
Master of Ballantrae	Stevenson, Robert Louis
Miracle at Philadelphia	Bowen, Catherine
Moby Dick +	Melville, Herman
North and South	Gaskell, Elizabeth
Oregon Trail	Parkman, Francis
Our Mutual Friend	Dickens, Charles
Poems	Dickinson, Emily
Poems	Frost, Robert
Poems (The Works of…)	Rossetti, Christina
Pygmalion	Shaw, George Bernard
Raven: a Biography of Sam Houston	James, Marquis
Rob Roy	Scott, Sir Walter
Scaramouche	Sabatini, Rafael
Servant of Slaves +	Irwin, Grace
Sevastopol Sketches +	Tolstoy, Leo
Sons and Lovers	Lawrence, D.H.
The Brothers Karamazov	Dostoyevsky, Fyodor
The Cherry Orchard	Chekhov, Anton
The Count of Monte Cristo	Dumas, Alexandre
The Covenant +	Michener, James
The Crisis	Paine, Thomas
The Fault in Our Stars	Green, John
The House of Seven Gables +	Hawthorne, Nathaniel
The Journal of George Fox	Fox, George
The Journal of John Wesley	Wesley, John
The Last of the Mohicans	Cooper, James Fenimore
The Life and Diary of David Brainerd	Brainerd, David
The Life and Voyages of Columbus	Irving, Washington
The Life of Samuel Johnson	Boswell, James
The Mill on the Floss	Eliot, George
The Picture of Dorian Gray	Wilde, Oscar
The Red and the Black	Stendahl
The Song at the Scaffold	von Le Fort, Gertrud
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde	Stevenson, Robert Louis
The Virginians +	Thackery, William
Uncle Tom's Cabin	Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Up From Slavery	Washington, Booker T.
Villette	Bronte, Charlotte
Washington Square	James, Henry
Wuthering Heights	Bronte, Emily

Homeschool Reading List - 10th Grade World History & British Lit Theme

Here is the reading list I put together for my 10th grader in addition to the books suggested by My Father's World. That year they were studying  world history and British literature so quite a few of these titles fit with that time period. (the + means any title by that author) Enjoy!

Title	Author
A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada	Irving, Washington
A Man for All Seasons	Bolt, Richard
Ballad of the White Horse	Chesterton, G.K.
Barchester Towers +	Trollope, Anthony
Barnaby Rudge	Dickens, Charles
Bulfinch's Mythology: Age of Chivalry & Legends of Charlemagne	Bulfinch, Thomas
Candide	Voltaire
Chivalry +	Cabell, James Branch
Cyrano de Bergerac (GN)	Rostand, Edmond
Gargantua and Pantagruel	Rabelais, Francois
Hamlet	Shakespeare, William
Henry IV	Shakespeare, William
Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther	Bainton, Roland H.
Hidden Figures	Shetterly, Margot Lee
Ivanhoe	Scott, Sir Walter
Jane Eyre	Bronte, Charlotte
Kenilworth	Scott, Sir Walter
King Lear	Shakespeare, William
Lorna Doone	Blackmore, Richard
Macbeth	Shakespeare, William
Middlemarch	Eliot, George
Much Ado About Nothing	Shakespeare, William
Murder in the Cathedral	Eliot, T.S.
Nicholas Nickleby	Dickens, Charles
Old Curiousity Shop	Dickens, Charles
Paradise War (trilogy)	Lawhead, Stephen
Pere Goirot	de Balzac, Honore
Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc	Twain, Mark
Poems	Burns, Robert
Prisoner of Zenda	Hawkins, Anthony Hope
Rabble in Arms +	Roberts, Kenneth
Selected Poems	Milton, John
Sense and Sensibility +	Austen, Jane
Shakepeare's Sonnets	Shakespeare, William
Tales of the Alhambra	Irving, Washington
Taming of the Shrew	Shakespeare, William
The Betrothed	Manzoni, Alessandro
The Black Tulip	Dumas, Alexandre
The Divine Comedy (GN)	Dante
The Help	Scott, Kathryn
The Hunchback of Notre Dame	Hugo, Victor
The Man in the Iron Mask	Dumas, Alexandre
The Once and Future King	White, T.H.
The Roots of the Mountains	Morris, William
The Scottish Chiefs	Porter, Jane
The Talisman	Scott, Sir Walter
The Three Musketeers	Dumas, Alexandre
The Travels of Marco Polo	Polo, Marco
The Vicar of Wakefield	Goldsmith, Oliver
Twenty Years After	Dumas, Alexandre
Vanity Fair	Thackery, William Makepeace
With Fire and Sword	Sienkiewicz, Henryk

Homeschool Reading List - 9th Grade Ancient History Theme

Here is the reading list I put together for my 9th grader in addition to the books suggested by My Father's World. That year they were studying ancient history so quite a few of these titles fit with that time period. (the + means any title by that author) Enjoy!

A Pillar of Iron +	Caldwell, Taylor
Alas, Babylon	Frank, Pat
Antony and Cleopatra	Shakespeare, William
Ben Hur +	Wallace, Lew
Bruchko	Olson, Bruce
Byzantium	Lawhead, Stephen
Catherine of Siena	Undset, Sigrid
Daring to Live on the Edge	Cunningham, Loren
Doctor Faustus	Marlowe, Christopher
Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ	Guyon, Madame Jeanne
Four Horsemen of Apocalypse	Ibanez, Blasco
Foxe's Christian Martyrs by John Foxe	ed. Berry, W. Grinton
Gods and Kings series	Austin, Lynn
House by the Medlar Tree by Giovanni Verga	Lawrence, D.H.
I, Claudius	Graves, Robert
I Dared to Call Him Father	Sheikh, Bilquis
Is That Really You, God?	Cunningham, Loren
Jerusalem +	Lagerlof, Selma
King Solomon's Mines +	Haggard, Henry Rider
Kisses from Katie	Davis, Katie
Lalla Rookh	Moore, Tom
Last Days of Pompeii	Bulwar-Lytton, Lord Edward
Lord of the Rings	Tolkien, J.R.
Mythology	Hamilton, Edith
Oedipus Rex	Sophocles
Peace Child	Richardson, Don
Quo Vadis	Sienkiewicz, Henryk
Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems	Arnold, Matthew
Taliesin + (series)	Lawhead, Stephen
Tartarin on the Alps	Daudet, Alphonse
The Greek Way	Hamilton, Edith
The High King (The Prydain Chronicles +)	Alexander, Lloyd
The Hobbit	Tolkien, J.R.
The Hunger Games (1,2,3)	Collins, Suzanne
The Lost Queen of Egypt	Morrison, Lucile
The Narrow Road	Brother Andrew
The Robe	Douglas, Lloyd C
The Roman Way	Hamilton, Edith
The Snow Goose	Gallico, Paul
The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs	Morris, William
This Present Darkness	Peretti, Frank

2018-2019 Homeschool Curricula Choices for 9th Grade - My Father's World

Year 8 of our "I will never, ever, ever homeschool" journey. LOL
I was thinking the other day that my padawans had a combined 6 years in Christian school but now we're at 16 years of homeschooling. Crazy daisy!

While those first years were full of hands-on projects, activities, and field trips, that aspect has definitely slowed down as we've hit high school for both of them. If you follow my blog regularly, I'm guessing you've picked up on the fact that there's very little worth blogging about when it comes to high school work. We still have a few hands-on projects, but it's shifted to more writing and textbooks than picture-worthy assignments.

Anyway, here's what Soprano's freshman year will look like:

Math: Saxon Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 and Life of Fred books
She needed a little more time in Algebra 1 to really grasp all of the concepts so we're scheduling it as half the lesson one day and the rest on day 2. She worked through about 2/3 of the Algebra 1 book last year, so we're plugging away at finishing it sometime this spring and then will move right into Algebra 2 (and probably continue that over the summer). To mix things up, every Friday she will do several chapters in Life of Fred picking up where she left off last year with the Pre-Algebra series.

English/Bible/History/Geography: My Father's World - Ancient History and Literature
Soprano is back using My Father's World this year after having two gap years using Notgrass and Beautiful Feet Books. She is a good writer, so I think she will have great success with AHL this year.

She also has a required literature list from which she needs to pick at least 20 books. Plus there is a good selection of lit recommended in AHL (see the stack with yellow tape on the spines).

Science: Compass Classroom Devotional Biology
I saw a great pre-sale offer for the DVD set, and it really caught my eye. I've just never jumped on the Apologia bandwagon and was on the hunt for something that Tenor and Soprano could do together this year. Devotional Biology has a great premise for teaching attributes of God as they teach aspects of biology. It also includes a full lab program that we'll be using.

Music/Art: Harmony Fine Arts 9th grade plans
Soprano will also be working towards a fine arts credit using the Harmony Fine Arts plans from 9th to 12th grade. This year she'll be focusing on ancient art through the Byzantines and baroque and early classical composers.

I'm also adding in a hymn study this year. Once a week, I'll read a chapter from one of the Mr. Pipes books and together, we'll learn and sing the hymns. Next year, I'd love to continue the hymn study...maybe adding in one of the books about some of our modern hymns or worship songs. Music geek alert. :)

Foreign Language: French Essentials Books 5 and 6 and Learn French the Fast and Easy Way
We need to get her 2 credits in foreign language to graduate. In previous years, Soprano has worked through the elementary and middle school levels of French Essentials. In order to make sure she will get a full credit this year, I added Learn French as well.

Electives:
Spelling - no credit/not graded
Soprano is going to work on her spelling this year using Apples and Apples 2. They are short, daily lessons specifically for secondary students. No random spelling lists...just quick reminders of basic spelling rules and then some practice exercises or word puzzles each day.




Logic - 1/2 credit
I did not like the logic books recommended by MFW when Tenor was in 9th grade, so Soprano will be using Art of Argument (Tenor used it in 10th) for her logic elective. She was grumbling about having to take it, but then I told her since she likes to argue this will help her learn to argue better. Then I stopped and thought about if I really wanted her to be able to argue better.... parenting fail. ;)
At least we'll be finishing this one up at the end of our first semester. Should I just give her an 'A' now? ;)


Creative Writing - 1 credit
Soprano is my writer. Since I despise writing, I am so pleased that I have one kid that enjoys it and doesn't seem to struggle with it like I do. AHL has plenty of academic writing in it, but we are also using The Creative Writer and My Book of Stories: Fairy Tales to give her time to work on her stories.


Interior Design - 1 credit
I sort of suggested this as a possible elective, and Soprano got really excited. Since we won't start this until after Christmas break, I haven't purchased any of the books yet. I have several resources in mind and once I get them in hand I will be able to pull the course together and come up with a schedule. I'm pretty sure we will definitely need to resubscribe to Sling TV so we can get HGTV and DIY Network...for research and educational purposes of course. :D
Possible books/resources:
Learning Zone Express: Interior Design
In the Hands of a Child Project Pack: Elements of Interior Design
AOP Consumer Science Lifepac 6: Interior Decorating 
Interior Design Studio (Kit)

Interior Design Course (book)
Design Your Dream Room (book/toy)
My Beautiful Room: Interior Design Workbook
Fashion Angels: Interior Design Sketch Portfolio (book/kit)
Interior Design Master Class (book...which is at our local library)

These lit-based curricula make the amount of needed books look insane!

2018-2019 Homeschool Curricula Choices for 11th Grade

Year 8 of our "I will never, ever, ever homeschool" journey. LOL
And this might be Tenor's last year *sniff, sniff* pending his acceptance into an early entry full dual enrollment program at a local tech college.

That potentiality has made planning this year a little tricky. But I think we have a good plan that could work with either scenario (either early entry/dual enrollment or regular homeschooling for his senior year).

Here's Tenor's Junior Year in our house:

Math: Life of Fred books
Since he doesn't *need* calculus to graduate (he already has enough credits) and doesn't need it for college admission and doesn't need it for his career path, we're not tackling a full year of Saxon Calculus, which would have been the next step for him. We talked about a business math type course or statistics but then I had the brilliant idea that we could use this year to do a math overview/review using Life of Fred. We'll try to get through Beginning Algebra, Advanced Algebra, and Geometry very quickly and then slow down and work through as many of the remaining high school level and college level books as he can.

English/Bible/History/Geography: My Father's World - U.S. History to 1877 and American Literature
Just like last year, we're staying with MFW. The biblical worldview is integrated extremely well; the literature selections are thought-provoking without being controversial or edgy; the composition instruction is thorough; and the overall package is put together very well.
He's not really excited about reading The Scarlet Letter, but seriously after reading Silas Marner last year, how bad could it really be?? ;)

I've also assigned him a required literature list with about four pages of titles (some that were left-over from last year). I let him pick at least 20 books from the list...just for exposure to other styles of lit or classic lit titles that he probably wouldn't choose on his own. (Um, especially considering he just pulled out some Garfield cartoon books this week. lol)

Science: Compass Classroom Devotional Biology
I saw a great pre-sale offer for the DVD set, and it really caught my eye. I've just never jumped on the Apologia bandwagon and was on the hunt for something that Tenor and Soprano could do together this year. Devotional Biology has a great premise for teaching attributes of God as they teach aspects of biology. It also includes a full lab program that we'll be using.

Foreign Language: Nothin'. :) Tenor finished his requirements for foreign language last year and chose to not continue with it.

Music/Art: Harmony Fine Arts 11th and 12th grade plans
In order to finish up his fine arts credit, he's doubling up this year. Since his other electives aren't full year, I don't think his schedule will be too overloaded with it.

I'm also adding in a hymn study this year. Once a week, I'll read a chapter from one of the Mr. Pipes books and together, we'll learn and sing the hymns. Next year, I'd love to continue the hymn study...maybe adding in one of the books about some of our modern hymns or worship songs. Music geek alert. :)

Electives:
Auto Maintenance and Repair
Since Tenor got his learner's permit earlier this summer, we're using Auto Upkeep as an elective and a much-needed life skills type class.

Practical Drafting
His future career path will probably include at least reading technical plans, if not creating them either by hand or with CAD. This used to be a recommended MFW elective, but they don't carry it anymore. I happened to find it used for only $10, and Tenor is pretty excited about it.
A friend who has been a drafter (or whatever his title actually is) for years recommended DraftSight as a free CAD program that we can use too. He said that his company has actually been considering dropping their paid CAD subscription and switching to DraftSight. That was enough recommendation for us.

Health (with Phys. Ed. and Driver's Ed.)
For graduation in our state, we have to teach health at some point in the secondary years (7th-12th grades). A friend gave me a box of old curricula to sell or dispose of for her, and Abeka high school health happened to be in there. I looked into some other publishers but free seemed to be the right choice. He'll finish up the Abeka health before Christmas and then I'll have him read a few books on relationships and dating. Pending my reading them, I've got When God Writes Your Love Story, Holding Hands Holding Hearts, New Rules for Love Sex and Dating, and Boundaries in Dating planned. We were also given Driver's Ed in a Box for free so we'll be using that too. I added it as a resource to our health elective even though it's an automobile thing. :)

Lots of books, y'all! :D