The importance of Living Books

“If we want a child’s mind to come alive, we feed him living ideas.”

Charlotte mason, Home Education

I like to think of Living Books as ‘Life Giving Books’. They give life to ideas and information in a way that no other format can. They literally bring knowledge alive!

Living books are the cornerstone of a Charlotte Mason education and are the source of most of the information that is presented to children engaged in this style of learning. However I believe that Living Books should form part of everyone’s reading list regardless of what educational philosophy you are following.  They are such a rich source of information and intellectual stimulation and offer an unparalleled method in my opinion of presenting facts to young minds. During our years of home educating we have mixed several different philosophies together over the years but we have always used living books.

Ever since Noah was three we have always invested in good quality living books, a living book is a book that whilst having an engaging narrative teaches something about that topic. Even when children are young you can find many books that encompass this. One example for early years is ‘Blue Berries for Sal’, I mention this book because I am just about to pass it on as my children are too old for it now. Anyway the story follows a mother and child who go blueberry picking, encounter a mother and baby bear and then preserve the blueberries. This simple story introduces the concepts of growing and picking fruit, harvesting, bears and preserving food.  That’s a lot of topics for a little book.  This is in essence what living books do they offer the audience actual factual information which they then learn about via the story.  This information should be woven into the very fabric of the story and not just bolted on via a page or two at the back. A living book should enrich a child’s mind, making them curious about the topics covered.

You can find living book lists on many sites and blogs categorised by age thankfully so you don’t have to think of these yourselves.  You can find book lists on Ambleside online, Simply Charlotte Mason and Charlotte Mason Help, Sonlight and many other places

However I have found that as time has gone on I can apply some criteria to any book to determine if it is a living book or not. Sometimes this is super obvious for instance many of the Julia Donaldson books whilst lovely, with playful rhyming prose are not living books, they offer virtually no information about a topic ( I would like to add that my children both enjoyed most of the Julia Donaldson books when they were young).  Similarly a living book is not a text book which only presents facts which are often superficial offering no deep understanding, it has an engaging narrative that will hopefully provide a substantial and deeper understanding of a topic to your child.

The criteria I use to determine if a book is a living book is:

• Does the story include lots of factual information about a given topic like seasons or horses? Or does it cover several topics but offer lots of information about them?
• Does the book communicate important information about a subject?
• Is the author an expert in their field are they passionate about the topic?
• Is the book engaging and inspiring? Are the characters memorable?
• Will the book instigate curiosity about a subject?
• Is the vocabulary rich?
• Can you honestly say that it is quality literature? This should be apparent from the prose.

An excellent example, in my opinion, of a book that meets the above criteria is The Thieves of Ostia by Caroline Lawrence.  This book is chock full of information about Roman life, customs, money and society all wrapped up in an exciting story about children investigating a crime!

Other good examples of living books are biographies or semi-autobiographical accounts and you will often see these on the living book lists for older children.

Over the years we have enjoyed many living books on a wide range of topics often returning time and time again to specific ones.  Several have become firm family favourites for many years, like Weslandia by Paul Fleischman.  These books have offered my children a deep understanding of many different subjects and inspired many hours of imaginative play. Obviously as children grow the level of living ideas (factual information) that can be gleaned from a book grows. Now that my children are older we read books that generally correspond to the period in history that we are studying but sometimes I choose a book because it is a classic tale that offers excitement and engagement whilst facilitating learning opportunities. We have recently read Treasure Island, I have not seen this on any living book lists but it contains a lot of information about pirates, about life in the 18^th century and how society was organised then as well loads of factual information about ships of that time period. As a result of this we have learned about and diagrammed schooner ships. Learned about the topography of an island and how these are represented on maps and about life at sea in the 18th century.  Truly an abundant and rich feast of ideas!

In summary living books will provide a rich and lively component to your child’s education that no other medium can. They also offer an opportunity for closeness and bonding, we like to do our reading when we are snuggled up on the sofa or whilst we are engaged in handwork whilst lying on the floor or lolling in a chair. Sometimes we have afternoon tea during read aloud however we accomplish it, it is always a cherished time. xx