Updated July 2019.  This reading list coordinates with the Classical Conversations Cycle 2 History memory work. We no longer use CC exclusively for memory work, but this is a solid book list for the covered time periods.  These titles are geared more toward elementary students with pictures books, as well as chapter books.  The focus is mostly living books, though there are a few textbook-y titles included.

It took about halfway through my first homeschooling year in Cycle 1 to realize that I thrive best by having a list prepared ahead of time.  And as with all of my lists, this is a jumping off point for me.  I don’t intend to read all of the books weekly, but I enjoy having options. I typically decide what we’re actually going to read the week or two before, based on our schedules and how much time we’ll have at home to read together.

I have added more resources that we’ve acquired through the years – it took many, many years to amass our collection.  Now that we’re coming up on out 8th year of homeschooling together, some of these titles have been read aloud several times over the years as we learn about history together.  They’ve become “classics” in our own homeschool library and I have to say, I simply love the repeating method of the classical model.

Week 1
King Arthur And The Knights Of The Round Table
The Making Of A Night: How Sir James Earned His Armor
Barefoot Book Of Knights
Viking Ships at Sunrise
Voyage with the Vikings
Revenge of the Red Night
You Wouldn’t Want To Be a Medieval Knight
Stories of Roland
Son of Charmelagne
Ten Kings and the Worlds They Ruled (chapter on Charlemagne)
Famous Men of the Middle Ages (chapter on Charlemagne)
D’Aulaires’ Book of Norse Myths

Week 2
Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices From A Medieval Village
A Year In A Castle
A Medieval Feast
The Knight At Dawn
Wulf the Saxon (audio by Jim Weiss)
An Illustrated History of 1066
Don’t Know Much About the Kings & Queens of England (chapter on William the Conqueror)

Week 3
The Squire And The Scroll
You Wouldn’t Want To Be A Crusader!
The Minstrel In The Tower
The Boy Knight: A Tale of the Crusades
Stone Soup
Knight’s Castle
King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table
Canterbury Tales
Heroines: Great Women Through the Ages (chapter on Eleanor of Aquitaine)

Week 4
The Magna Carta: Cornerstone of the Constitution
Rupert’s Parchment: Story of the Magna Carta
Robin Hood and the Golden Arrow
The Apple and the Arrow
Castle Diary: The Journal of Tobias Burgess

Week 5
Medieval Medicine And The Plague
You Wouldn’t Want To Be Joan Of Arc
Joan Of Arc
Who Was Joan of Arc?
The Door In The Wall
Great Events That Changed the World (account of Hundred Years War)
Tom Thumb

Week 6
Who Was Leonardo Da Vinci?
Leonardo And The Flying Boy
The Renaissance
I, Galileo
Bard of Avon
Macbeth for Kids
Hamlet for Kids
Kids During the Renaissance
Galileo, Michelangelo, and Da Vinci
Crazy Inventions Made During the Renaissance
Ptolemy vs. Copernicus (from Jim Weiss’ Galileo and the Stargazers)
Copernicus: Founder of Modern Astronomy
From The Mixed Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
The Shakespeare Stealer

Week 7
Martin Luther: A Man Who Changed the World
John Calvin
Who In the World Was the Secret Printer?
Courage and Conviction
Medieval Cathedral
Medieval Monastery
Saint Francis
Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Story of the Dumb Ox
Monks and Mystics
The Reformation

Week 8
The Picture History Of Great Explorers
Explorers Who Got Lost
Who Was Marco Polo?
You Wouldn’t Want To Sail With Christopher Columbus
Who Was Ferdinand Magellan?
Around The World In A Hundred Years
Maps and Mapping
Sir Walter Raleigh: Famous Explorers
To the Edge of the World

Week 9
The King’s Day: Louis XIV of France
Ten Kings and the Worlds They Ruled (Louis XIV)
Brilliant Brits: Henry VIII
Peter The Great
Peter the Great and Tsarist Russia
Ten Kings and the Worlds They Ruled (Peter the Great)
The Three Musketeers
Who Was Queen Elizabeth?
The Wild Queen: The Days and Nights of Mary, Queen of Scots

Week 10
Eyewitness: Russia
Babushka
Where is the Kremlin?
Catherine: The Great Journey, Russia, 1743
Anastasia: The Last Grand Duchess

Week 11
Les Miserables
You Wouldn’t Want To Be An Aristocrat in the French Revolution
The Little Prince
Getting To Know France And French
Great Events That Changed the World
The French Revolution
Madeline
The Man in the Iron Mask (audio)
The Fall of the Bastille
Who Was Marie Antoinette?
Paris 1789

Week 12
National Geographic Kids Everything Battles
Who Was Napoleon?
My Napoleon

Week 13
The Industrial Revolution
Smokestacks And Spinning Jennys
The Bobbin Girl
Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin
Kids During The Industrial Revolution
An Illustrated Timeline of Inventions and Inventors
The Picture History of Great Inventors
The Story of Inventions
Girls Think of Everything
The Twenty-One Balloons

Week 14
Knit Your Bit
Where Poppies Grow
DK Eyewitness Books: World War I
In Flanders Field: The Story Of The Poem By John McCrae
World War I for Kids
World War I: An Interactive History Adventure

Week 15
Everything World War I
War Game: Village Green To No-Man’s Land
Hero Over Here
War Horse
Christmas in the Trenches

Week 16
America in World War II: A History Just for Kids
Pearl Harbor: Ready to Read Level 3
I Survived the Bombing of Pearl Harbor, 1941
What Was Pearl Harbor?The Little Ships: The Heroic Rescue At Dunkirk In WWII
The Greatest Skating Race
Corrie Ten Boom: Shining In The Darkness
D-Day Landings: The Story of the Allied Invasion

Week 17
Survivors: True Stories of Children in the Holocaust
Surviving Hitler
I Survived #9: I Survived the Nazi Invasion, 1944
The Upstairs Room
Number the Stars
You Wouldn’t Want To Be a Secret Agent During WWII
Who Was Anne Frank?
The Atomic Bomb: A History Just for Kids
Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes
Hiroshima: A Novel

Week 18
Time For Kids: Franklin D. Roosevelt
Christmas From Heaven

Week 19
America in Korean War
Peacebound Trains

Week 20
Vietnam War: A History Just for Kids
The Wall
DK Eyewitness: Vietnam War

Week 21
The Cold War
The Cold War: A History Just for Kids
The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain
Ronald Reagan: Young Leader

Week 22
Border Breakdown: The Fall of The Berlin Wall
Breaking Stalin’s Nose

Week 23
George Bush: Getting to Know the U.S. Presidents
By KidCaps: The Gulf War

Week 24
Nelson Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom
Peaceful Protest: The Life of Nelson Mandela

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