Need More History in My Historical Fiction

I was intrigued to get a copy of In the Shadow of the Sun King by Golden Keyes Parsons to review. In 2006, we visited Versailles on a trip to Paris and I was surprised to see what a complex figure Louis XIV was. His reign lasted over 70 years. Versailles and the court culture surrounding it was at least in part an ploy to keep his nobles under control by forcing them to spend vast amounts of money on luxury items and parties thrown for the amusement of the court and the king. His reign began around the end of the Thirty Years war, a war over sovereignty and religion in Europe, and lasted well into the age of exploration in the New World. I was hoping that this book would explore this time and the changes and conflicts that made visiting Versailles interesting.

I was disappointed. The story focuses on one Huguenot family living in the countryside. Through a series of heavy handed actions, the family is soon separated and in dire straits. But because this occurs so early in the story, I found that I was having difficulty not only following the motivation for the family’s choices but even keeping the characters straight in my mind. Because there hadn’t been much foundation laid down about Calvinism’s earlier spread in France and the crown’s reaction to it, I found it difficult to understand the fears and pressures that the family was under. Instead of seeming desperate and heroic, the main character came off as naïve and foolhardy. A chapter or long prologue featuring the main characters (or their parents) during events like the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre or the persecutions that were occurring as the story begins would have done more to set the stage for the family’s actions.

I think that because this story represents at least in part the story of the author’s family that there may be a pressure to tell the story as the family history recounts it. Unfortunately, that may assume a higher background knowledge than a reader who is unfamiliar with the frictions in Europe over religion at the time brings to the story. The wars over religion in the 1600s were over far more than the minor bits of doctrine that separate modern American denominations. These were differences worth killing and dying over. But the seriousness of the divide didn’t come through for me. Instead the story seemed to assume that the reader would identify with the family because they were fellow Protestants or in an anachronistic sense of the importance of freedom of religion (an concept that didn’t exist at the time). There wasn’t much discussion of the idea that Catholics might have resisted Huguenots not just out of a struggle for power, but because they viewed Calvinism as a heresy.

I would be interested in reading a sequel. But I hope that it would come with a heavier dose of historical leavening in the story.

(I received a free review copy of this book from the publisher.)

Good Books Reading List

I mentioned previously that we had decided that we weren't getting around to reading quality literature and had decided to add a good books reading list to our school. I put together our first draft of a reading list by taking a couple books off our home bookshelf and then cruising the library children's section for whatever looked old and interesting. Here is what I came up with.

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

Caddie Woodlawn by Ryrie Brinks

The Schoolroom in the Parlor by Rebecca Caudell

Black Fox of Lorne by Marguerite de Angeli

Pirate Dog by Catherine Cleven

The Story of Roland by James Baldwin

The Number Devil by Hans Magnus Enzensberger*

The Book of Dragons by E. Nesbit

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kippling

Space Cadet by Robert Heinlein

We pulled out all of the books and did an impromptu book talk with me presenting a few and the kids reading the book flaps. Rutabaga was especially impressed by the idea that The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was old enough that both Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln could have been familiar with it. I was tickled to see that both kids immediately picked out a couple to read. Rutabaga picked The Story of Roland (and declared that he wanted to try to draw the picture on the cover of Roland in full armour). Cauliflower picked E. Nesbit's The Book of Dragons. I think he has already finished with it. I'm hopeful that he may want to read other Nesbit now.

I'm sure that the list will grow as we go along. I was flipping through some of my booklists looking for other worthy additions. Any favorites that the boys shouldn't miss?

The Boys' Reading Program

DH and I were talking about this year's homeschool a while back. While I'm generally please with the rotation we're doing between a month of following the Sonlight schedule and a month of intensive research and writing, he noticed that we weren't doing much reading of literature. There are lots of great titles on the Sonlight schedule, but less at this level that is just fun and rewarding reading.

So he challenged me to put together something of a reading list (the military is all about reading lists) for the boys to pick from. I had a couple in mind, and then I just went to the library and started pulling classic books off the shelf and piling them up.

Treasure Island was the first book that I thought of. I have a great copy from the Whole Story series. These have the full text, but include lots of illustrations and DK style sidebars of related information. I had a copy of Swiss Family Robinson as a kid from a similar series that was one of my favorite books (and has become a favorite of my middle son).

My thought is to put together a list of about twelve to twenty titles and have them read at least one every two weeks. The kids are voracious readers who will easily go through 2-4 novels a week. I want to make sure that I'm feeding them some quality, time tested stories in addition to the young adult novelas and space opera that is their normal entertainment.

Coming next: The Reading List

Carnival of Homeschooling

New Carnival of Homeschooling is up at Homeschool Bytes. Come check it out.

Questions about Homeschooling

Last year our support group had a curriculum fair. This might be rather unexceptional, except that we are a small support group on a military base overseas. Since we don't have big bookstores or an expansive library system, we have to do a lot of guesswork about the suitability of curriculum.

Our fair last year had several tables where families brought items to sell, projects to show off and some of their favorite curriculum to show and tell. I raided my shelves for math, science and language curriculum for folks to page through. We even set up Rosetta Stone in a corner so that people could try it out and see how the program worked (my middle son was the demonstrator).

We not only had many of our support group families, but also about a dozen non-homeschoolers, who dropped by to check things out and ask questions. At least a couple started homeschooling the following year.

We're doing another fair this year. This time, we're adding two question and answer panels. Experienced homeschoolers will field questions about why and how they homeschool. I'll be moderating and helping to keep things flowing. I'm hoping that we'll have a cross section of homeschooling styles and people with kids at different levels.

What I don't have is a great set of questions to ask the panel. That's where I'm looking for help. I'd love to hear your questions about homeschooling. Maybe they are the questions someone else patiently answered, giving you some confidence in your decision to homeschool. Maybe they are the questions that you seem to field over and over. Maybe it is the thing that you still haven't quite settled in your mind or the new issue that popped up after a couple years of homeschooling. Maybe it's the thing you've always wanted to ask a homeschooler, but never had the chance.

I've been homeschooling for a long time and chose homeschooling when my kids were quite young, so I don't always remember what I was uncertain about when I was first starting out. It would really help to hear someone else's questions.

Treasure Island Unit Study

Even though we've been reading a lot of books with our Sonlight Core 6 study of the ancients, I realized that good quality literature was sort of taking a back seat.

I wanted to put together a reading list of about 12 books and have the kids pick eight to read over the next few months. However, the only book that I've managed to decide on so far is Treasure Island.

So I perked up when I found this cool literature study for Treasure Island. It was written by a homeschool mom for a coop and it looks great. It includes chapter highlights, pirate songs, activities and more. High quality literature study on the level of what you would buy in an education store. The author used this in a boys book club, but I think it would also be a great resource for scout groups or even just a rockin' pirate birthday party. Great job Lydia at Little Blue School. (BTW, she's doing the Aeneid this year.)

Hat tip: Dewey's Treehouse and Homeschool Freebie