One such book I can't help but review, I did not read it to my kids yet, my friend Mae read it with me instead. When your children are later middle to high school this is a beautiful book to read, its even a little magical. It weaves a tale about how if everyone does their best with what they have, things can change for the better. There's nothing bad in the book. My hesitation with younger children is some stranger-danger and I just don't think they could understand the setting of the book since it is so foreign to the world they live in today. The book is called A Tree for Peter and is written by Kate Seredy. I mention it today because it is really hard to find. Our library had one copy it took me a while to get a hold of; used they are ridiculously expensive. So if you see a copy grab it and if you find two let me know.For independent reading Lance read four books.
Homer Price by McCloskey I read this to him aloud many years ago. Looking back, I can definitely say I didn't dumb down his read alouds, as Lance said this has a wide vocabulary. This book has nothing to do with the middle ages. It is a series of humorous short stories that revolve around the characters in a small down in middle America in the early 1900s. Leif Ericson by William O. Steele I originally planned to have this be a read aloud but changed my mind and had Lance read it independently. It is part of a series of biographies by Grosset & Dunlap that I stumbled on earlier this year and have been gathering up as I find them ever since. They are adventurous without being inappropriate. This did fit into our history timeline, and was a more detailed account of his life than other versions we have read.
King of the Wind by Marguerite Henry. This is my favorite of her books. The fact that it centers around a boy and his horse, inclined me to have Lance read it. The setting is early 1700s. It is historical fiction, it tells how the Godolphin Arabian came to be in England, by the then owner of Man O' War. Lance liked most how she described everything and boys loyalty to the horse.
The Reluctant Dragon by Kenneth Grahame. I have to admit I got this book from the library to be a read aloud for Titus. I remember reading it aloud to Lance when he was much younger. I remember thinking it was really funny. It still is funny but the vocabulary is off the charts. As soon as I started to read the book I realized I was loopy. The vocabulary of the book was way too much for Titus. He was a good sport and we tried to read short bits for a few nights till I finally asked if he'd rather read something else and he said "yes". So then Lance read it instead, and I'm happy to say he still finds it funny.Jared focused on two books this month for his independent reading.
Leif the Lucky by Berry This is not the more common book by the same name used by Beautiful Feet. Personally, I like this version better. I read them both from the library years ago and decided to only add this one to our home collection. The fact that I had two books at different reading levels about Leif Ericson is one of the reasons I chose to have them read these independently. It was fun to listen to the two of them discuss the differences between event accounts in the two books as they narrated their chapters to me.
His second book was also a Marguerite Henry book. He asked to read the sequel to Misty of Chincoteauge; Stormy, Misty's Foal. He's enjoying the read but a little disappointed it seems to be a sequel to the movie not the book. We watched the movie the other night and were a bit disheartened at the changes they made from the book.
For Titus he grabbed a lot of books about how things work, the most interesting was one called Electricity by Joseph Midthun. It uses a blob to play the role of electricity. The blob then teaches the intricacies of electricity in a manner understandable to young children. 
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