I am asking my children to read at least ten of the books on their individualized list before August 18, 2008. I also want each of them to memorize two poems this summer and present them for the family. I will take each child who does so out to eat to the restaurant of his choice, and I will also buy a book for each child who finishes the challenge. This list is for Red Rover Daughter, age 16, who just finished her sophomore year of high school. I must admit that several of the books on Red Rover’s list are left over from our study of twentieth century history and literature that we didn’t quite finish during the school year.
The Bible. Romans.
The Bible. I Samuel.
Brooks, Bruce. The Moves Make the Man. For Jerome Foxworthy, basketball is a metaphor for life. But trying to to teach the moves to Bix Rivers is a job that even Jerome may not be able to handle.
Jiang, Ji-li. Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution. A teenage girl survives the Chinese Cultural Revolution under Mao in spite of her family’s outcast status under the new Communist regime.
Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. Classic apologetics and theology.
Lindbergh, Anne Morrow. Bring Me a Unicorn: Diaries and Letters of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1922-1928. Before she was married to famous aviator Charles Lindbergh, Anne Morrow, daughter of the American ambassador to Mexico, kept a journal and wrote a plethora of letters. This book is the first of five volumes of collected letters and journal entries of Anne Morrow soon-to-be Lindbergh. The others are called: Hour of Gold Hour of Lead, Locked Rooms Open Doors, The Flower and the Nettle, and War Within and Without.
McCaughrean, Geraldine. The White Darkness. The May selection for the Biblically Literate reading club.
MacInnes, Helen. The Hidden Target. MacInnes gives the flavor of the Cold War era in a story of terrorism, counter-terrorism, hippies, drug culture, and communist threats. Nina O’Connell, a college student in Europe, agrees to join a caravan across the continent to “find herself” and assert her independence. However, the driver and leader of the free-spirited group may have ulterior motives.
Myers, Walter Dean. Fallen Angels. Perry, a teenager from Harlem, experiences the horrors of the Vietnam War.
Paton, Alan. Cry, the Beloved Country. South Africa under apartheid. I love this novel about sin and lostness and redemption and reconciliation. Here’s a Semicolon discussion of Paton’s novel with some favorite quotations.
Ramsey, Dave. Financial Peace Revisited. I don’t follow the entire Dave Ramsey plan, but he has a good basic handle on money management and financial responsibility.
Shakespeare, William. The Merchant of Venice.
Uris, Leon. Exodus. A novel of the Jewish return to Palestine and the birth of a new, modern nation of Israel. Some thoughts on Uris’s books.
Voeller, Brad. Accelerated Distance Learning. Earn your college degree or get a head start on your degree by using AP, CLEP, and other tests and distance classes to both lower the cost of a college education and cut the time it takes to earn a degree. This book explains how to do it.
Wilkerson, David. The Cross and the Switchblade. A Pentecostal preacher from rural Pennsylvania is called to work with drug addicts and gang members in New York City in the 1950’s-60’s.
Poems to memorize:
Portia’s speech from The Merchant of Venice:
The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.
Red Rover Daughter can choose her other poem herself. I’ll let you know what she chooses.