*For the Childrenās Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay – my first intro duction to Charlotte Mason. Her Original Homeschooling series wasnāt available to me in 1988 and it was more than a decade later that I found a secondhand set with the pink covers. In the meantime I read and re-read this book. Later I added:
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*Charlotte Mason Study Guide by Penny Gardner – a ānuts & boltsā guide/condensation of Masonās most important ideas with some information on her life. For someone short on time this is a good introduction to the Mason method.
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*A Charlotte Mason Companion by Karen Andreola – practical advice and insight on implementing Masonās ideas in real life. Karen and her husband Dean were responsible for re-printing Charlotte Masonās six volumes as a set (my āpinkā volumes) in 1989. They had not been published in a complete set for over eighty years!
āWe canāt teach them everything. What can we do? We can expand their horizons with a wide range if interests and then practice the fine art of education – that art if standing aside to let a child develop the relations proper to him. It us needless to worry about the āholesā if we believe that āeducation consists in the establishment of relations.ā
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*Books Children Love by Elizabeth Wilson (1987) – I bought this in 1995 and even though there were many books I couldnāt source the suggestions helped me know which authors to look for and what āliving booksā might look like.
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*When Children Love to Learn – Elaine Cooper, General Editor (2004). A good reference book to dip into & a practical follow-up to ‘For the Childrenās Sake.’ A helpful topic is that of alternating subjects so that there is a balance between āInspirationalā (e.g. Bible, Composer Study, Poetry) an āDisciplinaryā subjects (e.g. Composition, Mathematics, Geography).
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*The Living Page: Keeping Notebooks with Charlotte Mason by Laurie Bestvater (2013) Another book to dip into and reference.
āOne cannot faddishly add a nature notebook to an already full and disjointed school day and expect the outcomes the P.N.E.U. saw.ā
What are some of your favourite books that have helped you put the Charlotte Mason method into practice?
journey & destination 
I just made a list of books for a friend who is having her first child, and I included the Charlotte Mason Companion. And I suggested she read anything by Mason (such as her series). I have The Living Page, too. I sure miss making time for that kind of reflection. But anyway, I have been missing lately the early years of education with my kids, and C.M. really makes it so delightful to teach and learn with children. (sigh) I think I would like to still read a few of these, esp the one on books. I found my copy of The Mother’s Book by Mrs. Child. It is from the early 19th century. And I was looking at the booklist for children — books I never heard of, and many I have that were for early reading levels that I did not read until I was an adult. Amazing how low we’ve fallen. š¦
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Hi Ruth, I’ve seen some booklists now and again from earlier times and the reading level has definitely been dumbed down over time. I think that it’s partly due to how reading is taught in schools but also a result of the fact that there are other activities that take up the space that could be used for reading. The less people read the harder it becomes??
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