I have seen this summer book club the past two years and signed up for it with grand ambitions, thinking the kids will avidly gobble up all the book suggestions. I have to admit, after two years, this club is more for me than my kids. That’s OK, if I am keeping my “Mother Culture” alive I can do things just for me, when they don’t want to join along. This book club is basically taking a virtual trip around the world via reading books about different places and cultures. You get a copy of Give Your Child the World and use it to find books for those places. Right now the Kindle version is only $2.99! It’s an indispensable resource for finding what Charlotte Mason calls living books of stories from around the world. Go read my review here.

Each week has a different geographical theme, like Asia, Europe, Africa, etc. It’s lots of fun for me even if my kids don’t feel inclined to join me! I enjoy getting the picture books and reading them to my youngest for bedtime stories. (The older ones prefer to read on their own in bed.) I just may “force” the older kids to listen to the picture books for our summer homeschool devotionals in the morning. The chapter books suggested are harder to get through of course because they are longer. I have found some gems of chapter books from this guide, like Listening for Lions by Gloria Whelan for the Africa portion. I was in such a suspense to see how it ended! We had been reading it before Grandma came to visit two summers ago. So when she came, we finished reading it aloud with her. It definitely had a satisfying ending with justice served up to the bad guys!

You can get details and printables for the club here. Summer is for travel! If you can’t do it in person, do the next best thing! Go read living books about different places. I plan on bribing my kids to read books from this list/club over the summer, again. I hope that the third time’s the charm. I know Charlotte Mason said not to use bribes, but she didn’t have any biological children of her own, facing a busy household to manage with the complexities of a modern era with electronic distractions.

P.S. You can read my review of Give Your Child the World here.

You can see my resources of LDS-themed geography stories and resources to go with three of the different weeks/areas by clicking these links:

• Multiculturalism, click on these excellent articles: 1. This General Conference April 2016 talk, “Whoso Receiveth Them Receiveth Me” from Elder Neil L. Andersen 2.This talk from Elder Patrick Kearon’s talk, “A Refuge From the Storm” from last General Conference 2016
• Europe
• Africa

That’s all I’ve completed so far! Maybe this summer I will compile the rest!