The Ultimate Book List!!!

I love Charlotte Mason style “living books”, and think they are a great way to teach history! My favorite two sources for finding these fabulous books are Sonlight and Simply Charlotte Mason.

I’ve taken the time to go through the SCM (Simply Charlotte Mason) book lists and SL (Sonlight) book lists, and organize them chronologically and by age to easily go along with our Mystery of History study. Anyone who's looked at either list knows what a massive undertaking this is. But looking for the books as we went didn't really work for me, not to mention that I found myself looking more than once at the same thing which is really not an efficient use of my time. So I bit the bullet and went through them both in their entirety... once... and made a master list.

This list is for:

• Anyone wanting to supplement Mystery of History with Sonlight
• Anyone wanting to supplement Mystery of History with Simply Charlotte Mason
• Anyone who plans to use any combination of MOH, SL, or SCM over the years and wants to avoid buying duplicate books. 
• Anyone interested in finding carefully-chosen quality literature book suggestions organized by time period and reading level. This may be to supplement ANY history curriculum. 

If any of the above describes you, you should love me right now. Feel free to send Amazon gift cards my way.  Just kidding. :D But not really.

My intention in making this master list is so that each time we start a new year with the next level of MOH, I can grab this list to choose which living books to supplement with, based on what fits our family best that year. Also, since I want to try some of the Sonlight cores at upper levels, I can avoid buying the books now that would be a duplicate later. 

I’ve gathered the book recommendations from SL and SCM, and organized them:

• Chronologically - I also referenced their corresponding MOH lesson if there was one.
• By approximate grade level - I'd trust the level recommendations from SCM and SL more than I would from Amazon, but I included all that I found. Most of these books appeal to quite a range of ages, making them great for families learning together. Each list also begins with the family books, which make good read-alouds for the entire family together. 
• Including notes - I pasted in the book description (from SCM, SL, or Amazon), my own notes if I have any, and the current Amazon rating (1-5 stars). 

So hang on to your hats. I'll be sharing the lists in my next couple posts, organized as follows:

Sonlight / Simply Charlotte Mason Living Book Recommendations For:

• Mystery of History 1: Creation to Christ
• Mystery of History 2: The Early Church and Middle Ages
• Mystery of History 3: The Renaissance, Reformation, and Growth of Nations
• Mystery of History 4: Wars of Independence to Modern Times
• My Own Year #5: American History (If you don't do a year of American History, you could use these book recommendations during MOH year 4.)