When we first started using the Charlotte Mason method, I relied a lot on booklists prepared by other, more \u201cseasoned\u201d CM homeschoolers. Most of these lists typically included primarily time-tested classics, so that also became my \u201csafety ground\u201d when trying to find living books to add to our library. <\/p>
Once in a while, there would be books recommended that weren\u2019t old enough to be in the public domain, but most of these still tended to be published in the last century at least. (For someone born in the 1980s, it\u2019s hard to believe that the 1900s are actually already in the last century!)<\/p>
But, honestly, I\u2019ve always been skeptical of books published after 2000. Maybe it\u2019s a personal bias, or maybe it\u2019s also because of a lack of trust for books that haven\u2019t been tested over generations. I think this was the reason that, even if I\u2019ve already seen The Green Ember series by S.D. Smith recommended somewhere years ago, and even downloaded the free Kindle book when it went on promotion, I never really got around to reading it\u2014until recently, when I saw the website offered a free audiobook in exchange of signing up! <\/p>
We have three boys in our family. The oldest took to enjoying reading from an early age. Our second is dyslexic, so although he loves stories, he usually enjoys them on audio, so the free audiobook was a perfect thing to add to his library of audiobooks. I was floored that he finished the entire thing in about two days! Meanwhile, I also dug up the Kindle version and started reading through it myself, just to see what all the hype was about. <\/p>
That was about a month ago. I\u2019m now on Book 4; my hubby is nearing the end of Book 1, and my oldest has already finished the entire series! So that\u2019s probably a spoiler for what this book review is about. <\/p>
Here are my thoughts, as organized as I can make the plethora of them. (Remember I\u2019m writing from the perspective of the homeschooling parent, not of the kids.) <\/p>