About Your Father and Other Celebrities I Have Known: Ruminations and Revelations from a Desperate Mother to Her Dirty Son, written by Peggy Rowe
A lighthearted read filled with short stories about a marriage of two people with opposite upbringings and personalities, their life raising three sons, and how they handle fame.
Bamboo People, written by Mitali Perkins
Two boys, one who has no interest in fighting and another who's eager for violent revenge, find themselves as soldiers having to choose whether or not to do what they find uncomfortable or unfair. It's a novel about personal growth, doing the right thing when it's hard, the love of family and friends, and seeing the humanity of those we disagree with or have been hurt by.
Bud, Not Buddy (audio), written by Christopher Paul Curtis and narrated by James Avery
Ten years old, without a mother, escaped from a foster home, and determined to find his father, Bud has some adventures ahead of him. With moments scary, tender, and funny, this novel quickly draws you in.
Teaching from Rest: A Homeschooler's Guide to Unshakable Peace, written by Sarah Mackenzie
A beautifully written reminder to become neither overbearing in our focus on academics or lazy in our appreciation for the freedom we have, but prioritizing restful learning as we focus on relationships with our kids. A valuable read for any homeschooling parent, and probably for all parents to some degree, I found it timely, practical, and encouraging as someone who's both a Type A box-checker and one still struggling to find a rhythm after a long stretch of depression-induced apathy.
p. 2, Can you hit the pause button on your frustration long enough to realize that people rank infinitely higher than anything else on the list? Have you considered that God may have scooted these people into view for the very purpose of slowing you down?
p. 3, (quoting C.S. Lewis from Letters of C.S. Lewis) The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's "own," or "real" life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life - the life God is sending one day by day; what one calls one's "real life" is a phantom of one's own imagination.
p. 7, If our children are images of God (and they are), then we aren't meeting their needs or tending to their real nature when we swing like a pendulum to either the vice or anxiety or the vice of negligence.
p. 7-8, The Greek historian Plutarch once wrote, "The mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting."
Modern translations of Plutarch's maxim tell us that education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire, but we must remember that a fire does indeed need to be lit and then stoked, or else it will burn out.
p. 22, However, how we interact with our children while using the material matters far more than whether or not we get through it. Instead of focusing on what we need to cover in any given year, it may be helpful to think about what we might uncover and master. After all, if our eyes are so fixed on the finish line that we miss the experience entirely, what have we really gained for our labors?
p. 24, Pacing doesn't matter if you are sacrificing mastery and love for truth, goodness, and beauty. Change the way you assess your success. The quality of study matters far more than the mere quantity of learning.
p. 27, If we don't know where we're going, what our purpose is for our children, our homeschool, and our family culture, it will be impossible to know what should go and what should stay.
p. 27, Which words, phrases, or sentences do I want my child to use when describing his or her homeschooled childhood?
p. 37, Perhaps most importantly, put relationships above everything else. God made a true, beautiful, and good world to relish. Don't get so distracted by thirty-six weeks of carefully plotted lesson plans that you miss the glory that is already yours for the taking.
p. 40, Life is made up of inconsistencies, so make sure your schedule provides guide rails for your day rather than serving s a measure of guilt or frustration as you do your best to keep things running smoothly.
p. 51, What if, instead of trying to make the most of our time, we worked harder at savoring it? What if we were more intentional and lavish with our time and more detached from our checklists?
p. 52, If education is in part an atmosphere, then creating an atmosphere of peace should be of utmost importance.
p. 54, Today, do less. Do it well.
p. 60, If we would like our children to practice deep thinking, contemplate big ideas, and relish truth and beauty as they go about their learning, perhaps we should make that a habit ourselves.
p. 69, Our children are not projects. If, by the grace of God, we can manage to remember that our children are all made in HIs image - and more importantly, if we can treat them as such despite the mess and the chaos - then we will really be able to teach from rest.
p. 79, Value academic work because nurturing the intellect is part of what makes us fully human, but don't elevate it beyond its place. There are relationships to cultivate, books to read, oceans to swim in, forts to build, toilets to scrub, bills to pay, paintings to create, dinners to make.
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