Read the World – Living Books for Europe {a few suggestions}

Oh boy, is it EVER Summer in our home. We went swimming SIX out of seven days this week. Yep… I’m exhausted! Truth be told – we aren’t reading nearly as much as I’d like this July. It has been a unique month filled with LOTS of kids at our home, in our van, and in our lives – and busy, busy days with little to no room for reading aloud. (I can’t believe I’m saying that!) But, it is true. It is different, but still meaningful and blessed – in different ways.

I’m trying to have grace with myself but BOY am I missing our regular routine. I guess I’m hoping the ‘burn them out in July, back to business in August’ theory will actually work. Um, maybe.

So, yeah, please do not look at this post and think we are actually READING all the books photographed right now.

No, no, no… today it took us about 4 tries to get the The Butterfly by Patricia Polacco because we had friends knocking at the door and another friend calling repeatedly on the phone. (chuckle… yep, it’s Summer…)

There are many wonderful titles for Europe in Jamie’s book, Give your Child the World. The ones below are titles I was easily able to get from our local library. (So, hopefully you can too!?)

So, this post serves as a reference and maybe even an inspiration for finding GREAT living books set in European countries for further reading, learning, and exploration.

Interested in following along with Read the World? Here’s the link to the main Read the World page.

And here’s the link to this week’s

Read the World Europe Page

as well as the

Growing up in England

page. This is a beautiful post from Lynn Seddon who wrote a Nature Study program called

Exploring Nature with Children

. I will be doing a full review of this curriculum in a few months! 🙂 PS. It’s GREAT!

Now, let’s take a peek at some of these awesome Europe Living Books:

A Couple Favorite Reads from this Week:

Summer Birds by Margarita Engle

This was a beautiful living history book set in the middle ages about Maria Merion, a naturalist who brought light to the truth about insects. At that time it was believed that many insects, especially those that went through metamorphosis were evil! Maria helped dispel this myth through her careful observation and study of these amazing creatures. GREAT living book!

The Butterfly by Patricia Pollaco

Okay, if you haven’t read Patricia’s books – you need to start! She has so many amazing titles! This one is an engaging (the kids were captivated!) book about a young girl caught in the middle of WWII in Nazi occupied France. Beautifully written, open and honest about the realities of what life would have been like for both Jews and non-Jews in France at that time.

The Bard of Avon by Diane Stanley

Classic Diane Stanley. This is a much-recommended book on many lists for living books. We really enjoyed reading about William Shakespeare’s life and work through this beautifully written and illustrated living book. I highly recommend any and all of Diane Stanley’s titles. They are super interesting and function so well as history texts that are alive and exciting.

Number the Stars by Lois Lawry – we can currently reading this one as a novel read-aloud and so far we are really enjoying it. *smile*

Hope you have a great weekend friends.

Next week – North America!