homeschool

New Book Club: Teaching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

September 18, 2024 by Amy Leave a Comment

It’s hard for me to believe, but My Little Man is now a senior in high school – and that means that this is our last year of book club. As I prepare for him to launch into his future, I’m thinking about what I still want him to learn, things about character and being strong and leaning into what he believes, in part – all those becoming-an-adult things that are so very important. That’s why I chose to kick off this school year with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – this book embodies so many of those things, all while being loads of fun at the same time!

I decided to switch things up a bit and created a game board that follows the sequence of major events for this book. The kids moved their pieces around the board, answering questions about the book and participating in book-related games and activities as they did so. They answered questions about symbols and allegories, about characterization, personal choice, and much more. We also decorated quote bookmarks with charms, found ring pops and Hufflepuff’s cup, and tried to practice our sock throwing skills (cornhole) so we could be ready to free any house elves we might stumble across.

The meat of it all came in the form of our Hogwarts school trunks, though. I spray painted heavy shoeboxes black and printed all sorts of wizarding logos that the kids could use as decorative ‘stickers’ to glue on. As we moved through the book, they took Harry’s challenges and personalized them. When he agonized over the truth in Dumbledore’s obituary, they created mini scrapbooks of their current lives to put into their trunks – something that they could look back at to see who they are right now. When Harry carved Dobby’s tombstone, they wrote their own epitaphs, thinking about what they want to be known for and how they might live that out in the years to come.

We did a lot of snacking, too, because the food connected with the wizarding world is too much fun to miss. I made pumpkin juice, rock cakes, exploding bon-bons, and stew. Since this last book is a bit different in setting than the others, I framed our book club party as the one that Hagrid hosts to garner support for Harry Potter – as mentioned in the PotterWatch radio show. I made ‘Hagrid’s Beast Stew’ as the main dish, and we served it in bread ‘cauldrons’ for fun. I added simple bubble gum, Pocky sticks (as wands), and chocolate frogs, complete with boxes and cards, to round out the food table and to keep the mood festive.

I made a few things for this book club event, too, because I wanted to have memorabilia to go with this one. Party favors, souvenirs – call it what you will – but it was fun.

First I designed a simple logo for the party and had it printed as round stickers. I bought heavy glass tankards from the Dollar Tree and added the stickers – perfect for pumpkin juice or butterbeer at Hagrid’s, right?

Using large, colorful feathers left over from another party, I used glittery washi tape to attach the feathers to the top of simple stick pens. Voila! Griffyndor-themed quills, perfect for the labeling photos and writing epitaphs to go in our Hogwarts time capsules!

So there you have it – our senior-year Harry Potter-themed book club.

Have you read Harry Potter with your kids? I’d love to hear what you did with it!

New for A Monster Calls: Hexagonal Thinking Analysis Activities

March 12, 2024 by Amy Leave a Comment

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Last month at book club, when the teens and I were digging into A Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds as we moved around hexagons, I was reminded of just how helpful these slips of paper are to kids. Having manipulatives, these concrete objects that they hold and move, helps them to put into words the abstract relationships they see between people and places and ideas within the story. Are you new to hexagonal thinking? Read this post to learn more!

So when we read Patrick Ness’ A Monster Calls this month, with it’s wealth of symbolism and grief and truth, I knew it was time to create a set of hexagons for this story, too.

New from A Nest in the Rocks: Hexagonal Thinking Analysis Activities for *A Monster Calls* by Patrick Ness.

When I do this, I include the names of all the characters who make any significant contribution to the story. I include the places I think are most important, as well as the symbols, themes, and major ideas of the story.

I can’t leave out the quotations, either. Sometimes there are just those lines, you know the ones, the kind that perfectly sum up the meaning of a scene, and they beg to be included.

That’s what happened with A Monster Calls. There’s just so much to this story that I had to add extra hexagons, so there are more than usual. Sometimes I worry that maybe there will be too many, that having more hexagons will make it easier to find the connections between them … but then we want our kids to be able to name and describe these connections, and if there’s more to the story, how can I choose to leave those out?

I do include extra, blank hexagons, though, should you decide that something stands out to you that didn’t to me. You could also take away hexagons if you want your students to focus on just themes, or not places, or more heavily on quotations.

That’s a big part of what makes hexagonal thinking activities so wonderful to me. They can be customized in myriads of ways to scaffold your students of any ability.

So I hope that this set of activities for A Monster Calls is beneficial to your students. Dig deep and learn all that the monster has to share with you.

Have you tried hexagonal thinking activities with your students? I’d love to know about your experience in the comments!

New! Using Hexagonal Thinking Activities for Long Way Down

February 27, 2024 by Amy Leave a Comment

This post contains affiliate links that support this blog. Thank you for using them.

Have you read Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds? It’s a powerful novel in verse about the causes, consequences, and mindset connected to street violence – and the whole story takes place in 60 seconds!

Read on to find out how I used hexagonal thinking activities with my book club students when we read Jason Reynolds’ *Long Way Down.*

I’ve been hearing teachers rave about it for a few years, but I had my doubts about it at first. Was it another one of those books that work for public school classrooms but is too harsh, too violent … something that my rural, homeschooled kids couldn’t relate to?

Then I read it.

It is harsh. It is violent – it needs to be, because street violence is just that, and it’s hard, because the lifestyle and culture that surrounds this issue is hard; but that doesn’t mean that only inner-city kids should read it. And the violence is primarily off the page, never happening in real time, so you’re experiencing it differently than the characters do themselves.

Instead, I found it a fantastic story for prompting deep discussion – so much so that I decided to use it with my teen book club. We were able to talk about the mindset of these communities. Of what it must be like, feel like, to live there. To grow up watching friend after friend and relative after relative die. To have it ingrained in you to duck, to hide, to wait, when you hear gunshots, and then to look around to see who survived.

The police chief of our town, the sheriff of our county, a lieutenant/SWAT leader, and a pastor/youth program director came to meet with us. We held an open forum and invited the community, where each of the above leaders introduced themselves and then talked about their experience with the issues in Long Way Down. It was sobering to realize just how prevalent it is here – it’s not just an inner-city problem. After that, we asked questions and talked about these issues peacefully and openly.

When the community members had left, and my book clubbers had shared their reflections about our community discussion, I broke out the hexagons. It had been a while since we did one of these, and after reviewing the basics, the kids quickly dove in, grabbing hexagons, sharing what they meant to them personally, and then talking about how they thought they fit – or didn’t – as they tried to fit them together. They pieced them one way, had several straggling pieces with few connections, and so I challenged them to try to make tighter relationships with those.

After they did that, they swirled the hexagons and started over – this time purposely choosing the hexagon that they felt named the most important thing to this story. They built hexagonal connections around this one, discussing story elements as they did so, and it was fun to see just how engaged they were throughout this activity!

I love seeing my book clubbers dig deeply into something, especially these hard, emotional topics. That’s why I want to make this resource available to you. I’ve put together all of the hexagons that we used, in two sizes, plus blanks so you can add your own, and more hexagonal thinking activities for you in one product. This can be used before reading, after reading, for cooperative learning like book clubs or small discussion groups, or even for assessment.

Click on this image to get all the details about my new resource Hexagonal Thinking Activities for Jason Reynolds’ *Long Way Down*.

Hexagonal thinking is great because it helps to make abstract concepts more concrete. For students who struggle with putting themes and emotions into words, these hexagons solidify the structures and help to scaffold them towards deeper analysis.

If you’re using Long Way Down with your students, give this a try! It’s an excellent book for this type of analysis.

Have you used Long Way Down with students? What was their reaction?

How to Introduce Graphic Novels to your Students

November 16, 2023 by Amy Leave a Comment

This post uses affiliate links. They don’t cost anything for you but do help to support this blog. Thanks for using them!

Do you use graphic novels in your classroom?

I haven’t yet, but I want to, and as I’ve been reading them in preparation for this, I realize that there’s much more to them than I originally thought.

For instance, there’s lots of vocabulary connected to the things that make graphic novels unique. Motion lines, panels, gutters, speech and thought bubbles, and much more – these are important words to know when discussing graphic novels.

If I’m going to use them with my students, then I definitely want them to be able to discuss them intelligently, and that means knowing about and understanding this vocabulary.

How to Introduce Graphic Novels to your Students

Taking that a step further, we can also analyze all of these elements That will add depth to the story and allow us to look not only at how the author crafted the story itself but how the artist adds to that through the use of color, lines, spacing, lettering, and much more.

So students need to know these things before they dig into a graphic novel for a lesson, and we need to teach it, but I don’t want that to be boring. I think it should be just as exciting as the graphic novels themselves – and that’s why I’ve created a scavenger hunt that will both engage your students and teach them many important elements of graphic novels!

This image shows the student directions and mission cards for the Graphic Novel Scavenger Hunt. — How to Introduce Graphic Novels to your Students

The scavenger starts with a direction card and a mission card for your students. The mission references the brand new Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library graphic novel, so it will fit perfectly with that – but you could use this resource to introduce these elements before beginning any graphic novel unit. (Pssst – why should you use this book? Find out here)

There are ten code word cards. Each of these cards features a short information reading passage and a question that leads to a code word that’s found on a different card. As the teacher, you choose whether to hang the cards around the room like a gallery walk, place them on tables, or hide them – it’s up to you.

This image depicts one of the code word cards with a reading passage and the student answer sheet for the Graphic Novel Scavenger Hunt. — How to Introduce Graphic Novels to your Students

To find the code words, the students move in groups throughout the space to read the cards and find the code words. They’ll likely need to read the cards several times to find all of the code words, which will help them to remember the information. They add the code words to their answer sheet and then unscramble the letters to find the mystery word.

I’ve also included a reflective writing prompt that can be used for group discussion or as an exit ticket to help the students think about what they’ve learned.

This image shows a variety of pages included within the Graphic Novel Scavenger Hunt. — Graphic Novel Scavenger Hunt

I think your students will love playing this scavenger hunt, so I’ve made it available individually and as part of a Lemoncello bundle.

Do you use graphic novels in your classroom? Do you teach the vocabulary and unique elements? Let me know in the comments and I’ll give away one scavenger hunt on December 4! Enter through the rafflecopter here.

How to Make the Most of the New Lemoncello Graphic Novel

October 30, 2023 by Amy Leave a Comment

This post uses affiliate links that won’t cost you a cent but helps to support this blog. Thank you for using them.

Chris Grabenstein is releasing a new graphic novel version of Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library – and it’s fantabulous! It has all the awesome lessons of the original while maintaining the fun and being true to the storyline.

So, as you know how much I love Lemoncello, I immediately started thinking about all the ways that it could be used to make learning fun – which it is, by definition. Fun, I mean. It’s a Lemoncello!

How to Make the Most of the new Lemoncello Graphic Novel

So here are a few ideas that I think would work for a traditional classroom, independent book clubs, or homeschools.

This version would be great to share with students who may not be ready to read the full novel version. This would make it possible for a whole class to study the same story while making it more accessible to a variety of learners. The same could be true for students for whom English is not their first language.

Students could also read both versions and compare them. They could study the unique elements of a graphic novel and debate how that competes with the depth of language and inference a traditional novel provides. You could even throw in the movie for good measure and compare all the genres. What are the pros and cons of each? For whom? (Those exceptional students who have have seen the play – just think of the options!) –> Need resources to introduce the elements of graphic novels to your students? Check out this scavenger hunt lesson!

Advanced students could put the graphic novelist on trial. Did he do a Grabenstein-worthy job in this transformation? Or graphic novels themselves – are they ‘literature?’

Or go at this same idea a different way. Split the class into different groups. Have some research Chris Grabenstein and the elements of middle-grade novels. Have some research Douglas Holgate and the elements of graphic novels. Set up an ‘interview’ between Grabenstein and Holgate, with students from each group portraying each artist, and let them create questions for the other. Not quite like a debate, but a discussion about the different traits. They would need to know both the literary elements of each style and have a feel for each man’s character and style. I think that could be really fun! Maybe a third group from the classroom could be the press or audience who interviews them.

You could even host a book club-style event in which different groups of students partake of one of the genres each, and then a celebration is held where they formally discuss the issues and compare the genres. There could even be balloons – and maybe birthday cake!

How to Make the Most of the new Lemoncello Graphic Novel

So there you go – some crazy fun ideas to celebrate the release of Chris Grabenstein’s new graphic novel version of Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library. Tell me – how will you use or enjoy this book?

Ready to jump into the fun? Go back to this original version! Included with this bundle are party decorations, recipes, and games; an escape room; and elements to help you compare the book to the movie.

Graphic Novel Scavenger Hunt image — Graphic Novel Scavenger Hunt

NEW: Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library Graphic Novel Review

October 28, 2023 by Amy Leave a Comment

This post includes affiliate links. Thank you for using them.

Chris Grabenstein has done it again! The new graphic novel edition of Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library totally knocks it out of the book stacks!

I admit that I was a bit hesitant about this one – I mean, really: how could anything top the awesomeness that is the original Mr. Lemoncello? Author Chris Grabenstein and artist Douglas Holgate have done amazing work, though, and this new version deserves shelf space right next to the original.

Read my full review of the new graphic novel version of *Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library.*

I love how close to the original storyline this new version is. The text both maintains the depth of the original and even the fun of the original language.

The artwork adds even more depth. Holgate uses colors masterfully, using different palates to indicate flashbacks, tone, and meaning. Students can dig into these, as well as the font, size, and other textual elements to study the inferences and glean more depth from the story.

I can see many uses for this book beyond basic entertainment – not to make light of the wealth of enjoyment it’s sure to bring kids all over the world.

In addition to all of these great features, this new version makes the moral lessons of Mr. Lemoncello abundantly clear. In this version we can see the upset faces of the kids who have to leave the game because they didn’t follow the rules. We can see the hurt on faces when other kids aren’t nice, and that really helps bring these moral lessons home.

Read my full review of the new graphic novel version of Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library.

The graphic novel version of Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library is a fantastic addition to the Lemoncello universe. It will make these stories – and the very real, very important life and character lessons they share – accessible to even more children. All libraries who carry books for children should have these Lemoncello books on their shelves.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

I have lots of ideas about how to use this new graphic novel version of Mr. Lemoncello with your students! Come back on Monday to learn more.

Learn How to Draw with ARTistic Pursuits – Review

August 1, 2022 by Amy Leave a Comment

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

I love doing art with my kids. Some of my favorite homeschool memories are of us all crowded around a table, listening to an audiobook and trying out new art techniques or doing something creative. We enjoy watching those ‘this is how you recreate this piece of art’ videos, and that’s why I was excited to try the Drawing with Graded Graphite Pencils, Art Core 3 by ARTistic Pursuits.

Read my full review of the Drawing with Graded Graphite Pencils course by ARTistic Pursuits here.

Drawing with Graded Graphite Pencils consists of online video-based classes which you can watch at your own pace and a textbook. During the video, a new concept about drawing is taught, and then you watch the teacher describe the process for what she’s drawing, why she chose it, and how she does it. Then instructions are given for students to choose a similar concept to draw to practice the skills taught.

The videos are professionally made and very well done. Each one opens with a little intro featuring someone else, and then the actual lesson begins. The videos are all around ten minutes long – enough to provide actionable tips and not so long that you get totally bored watching someone else do art. (The videos are actually sped up at times with voiceover done so that the drawing and instruction can happen in a timely manner. This was a nice feature.)

The required materials are simple and few, and that made them easy to acquire at an inexpensive price – both things I like! We actually had two sets of drawing pencils, and so My Little Man and I tackled these videos together.

Read my full review of the Drawing with Graded Graphite Pencils course by ARTistic Pursuits here.

I’ve had drawing lessons before, and I love playing around with light and shadows, texture and shape … but My Little Man prefers lines. While we’ve done lots of art, and we have done formal lessons before, this course goes much deeper into that than we’ve done in years – and that was a bit stressful for My Little Man. Maybe if we’d done the class that came before this, it would’ve been less of a thing – but that’s on me. I went by his age, and he did fine with it.

At first, we were both a bit lost when it came time for us to begin our own piece. We had the instructions, but for some reason I wasn’t expecting the free-draw aspect of it – though that totally makes sense. We had fun searching for images and putting together still life collections that met the requirements, and then since My Little Man is a fan of classical music, we turned up Pandora and got to work!

Some of our pieces came out much better than we expected, and we were happily surprised. Others were much harder, and it took time to figure out what was off. At that point I really missed having an in-person teacher – or at least one we could correspond with for feedback – but we definitely improved over the course of our work with this class.

There are nine video lessons in the course – but there are 36 lessons, and that’s where the textbook comes in. The video lessons are called units and there’s four lessons for each one in the textbook. This is where you learn about classic art pieces that feature the skill or technique you learned about in the video and where you receive more instruction about using it yourself.

There’s a whole video at the beginning of the course about how to use the textbook – but for some reason I struggled with this one. It’s pretty simple, really, but I didn’t get it at first, and so we jumped right in. I really like the added instruction and the connection with famous art pieces that the book adds. Take the time that you need at the beginning to get it all straight – it’s worth it.

ARTistic Pursuits recommends that this course be a one-semester class, where you met twice per week. I think that’s very realistic. That has you completing two units per month, roughly, and spending maybe an hour or so on art at each meeting – depending on how ‘into’ it your student is.

So if you’re looking for drawing lessons that progress though ages and stages, consider the drawing lessons offered by ARTistic Pursuits. This particular class is recommended for middle school kiddos, but there’s one for upper elementary and one for high school, so it could make a great series for art lovers.

Don’t take my word for it, though – click on the banner below to read other reviews from the Homeschool Review Crew.

Become a Grammar Expert with Paradigm Accelerated Curriculum

May 23, 2022 by Amy Leave a Comment

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

We love to learn grammar by taking apart excellent sentences from the books that we read and by examining each other’s writing to fix mistakes and make it better. My kids have at times asked for harder, more direct grammar instruction, though, and that’s why we are excited for the opportunity to review English 1 Language Skills (9th grade) from Paradigm Accelerated Curriculum.

Read on for my full review of English 1 Language Skills (Grade 9) from Paradigm Accelerated Curriculum.

PAC offers different types of curriculum, but the English 1 Language Skills piece that we’ve been using is a complete language arts curriculum. It’s available in both digital and physical formats, and we received both. My Little Man chose to use the physical version.

When I first opened the box, it felt overwhelming – but just for a few moments. This kit has several pieces: the ‘textbook,’ the activity book where the student actually writes answers and completes work, and answer keys for the teacher. These ‘books’ are all softcover, and to things simple, the books are printed in smaller, softcover pieces instead of massive workbooks or textbooks. What looks like many pieces at first is merely a series of small workbooks the student moves through. These smaller books are easier to use and easy to carry around, which we both enjoyed.

The answer keys were actually shrink-wrapped, hole-punched pages, so I pulled out an empty binder and had them ready to go in a matter of minutes. I like how easy that process was!

The student books are clearly labeled on the front as being ‘text’ or ‘activity’ and with the number of each. The curriculum is also clearly structured: Book One of each type contains Chapter One, and that is broken down into 15 lessons with a quiz after every five lessons. After the end of all fifteen lessons, the student takes a test and then moves into Chapter Two.

Each lesson begins with a short story about a historical figure. The lesson includes a character lesson, something short and quotable that is to be memorized, vocabulary words, and then moves into the grammar instruction. After reading all of this from the textbook, the student switches to the activity book to complete the exercises for that lesson.

On the left: part of a reading selection that sparks the grammar lesson. On the right: the first page of those grammar activities.

My Little Man loves the finite piece of this. He loves knowing exactly what he’s expected to do each day and exactly when he’ll be finished. He likes the similar structure of the lessons and that familiarity this breeds of how it all works. He also enjoyed reading the stories and worked well with the clear directions.

On the other hand, the grammar was tricky at times. Perhaps there are components for middle school, and so by jumping into the middle we missed things. A few times we felt as if more instruction was needed. While I love the simplicity of merely comparing the answers to those in the answer key, if My Little Man needed help, I sometimes needed it, too. I’m pretty good with grammar, and I was always able to figure it out, but simpler, clearer explanations would have been great.

PAC’s website claims that one of their goals is to prepare students for a post-secondary work with strong communication skills, and I can see that one would clearly excel with grammar after using this curriculum. The lessons are extremely detailed, and the scope and sequence moves through a variety of grammar types and structures, moving beyond simple word choice to sentence and paragraph construction. Completion of this class is worth one credit, and you’ll certainly get your money’s worth of grammar instruction by the end.

I would personally hesitate to call this a complete English language arts curriculum, though, simply because the reading components all appear to be the short selections that are part of the lessons. While they do take a variety of formats and I appreciate the way that they’ve been chosen to highlight positive character traits, I want my students to do much more reading for me than what is included here. We’ll continue to use this alongside of our other reading and analytical work, and I think it’s perfect for that.

Don’t take my word for it, though. See what the other members of the Homeschool Review Crew have to say!

Here’s How to Make the Most of Mr. Lemoncello’s Very First Game

May 22, 2022 by Amy Leave a Comment

Mr. Lemoncello’s Very First Game by Chris Grabenstein just released, and it’s fantabulous! It’s the kind of story that everyone should read: it’s exciting, it’s full of adventure, and there are all sorts of character lessons and discussion opportunities tied up with the puzzles and riddles and problems of the story. That means that it’s a wonderful book to hand to your child, and you can feel confident that they’re reading an exciting but age-appropriate read.

You could go a step further, though. You could make this a class or family read-aloud, a book club book, or a choice for literature circles – and then you could dig deep into all of those exciting topics and character-building moments together. You could have groups debating the issues and exploring how Grabenstein used this book to set up the man that Luigi L. Lemoncello would later become.

Get your reading and writing guide for *Mr. Lemoncello’s Very First Game* here!

I want to help you make the most of all the excitement and energy and wisdom found in Mr. Lemoncello’s Very First Game! That’s why I’ve created a reading guide, full of discussion questions, short essays, vocabulary lists, and creative writing prompts of all sorts – so that you can just enjoy having fun with the story with your kids.

I have more ideas, though, so stay tuned for more Lemoncello fun to come!

Want to know more about what makes this book so special? Read my full review here!

With whom do you enjoy wonderful books? Let me know in the comments below – and if you’ve read Mr. Lemoncello’s Very First Game, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Make History Fun with Prisoner of War by Whatsoever Stories

May 9, 2022 by Amy Leave a Comment

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

I absolutely love books that can be more than just a story. If I can extend it to include educational lessons, make it a family read aloud, or do something else fun with it, then that’s a book I want on my shelf. That’s why I was excited for the opportunity to review Prisoner of War, authored Kinsey M. Rockett of Whatsoever Stories.

Read on for my full review of Prisoner of War by Whatsoever Stories.

Prisoner of War is based on World War II history – the history of prisoners of war, of escape attempts. of Allied pilots, of the German Luftwaffe. Rockett has done her homework and knows her history well – and that’s the most important thing for a historical fiction novel. With clear writing and a conversational tone, Rockett conveys her story well.

I like the concept of the story. Soldiers going in to stage a mass rescue of POWs? That’s an exciting premise with great potential for historical and character-building lessons. It could appeal to a really wide age range of students.

This book is intended for students ages twelve and up. At fifteen, My Little Man – who’s no longer so little – is well within that range, but he’s long been a student of various wars and is a serious lover of classic fiction (meaning that he can handle the most intense and obscure language and sentence structure). That high school student of mine devoured this story but found it to be a bit cheesy. I think he may have meant preachy – there are longish passages of scripture, which are a bit unusual. He was full of enthusiasm for the message, though, saying that the book has a clear and very Christian message. I think it would make a great family read aloud – I can see it being used to introduce various World War II concepts to a variety of ages. This would also make it easy to discuss both the Christian message and the historical concepts together.

Prisoner of War is a large paperback book with a full-color cover that’s just shy of 400 pages. The font and clear spacing keeps the reader turning pages, though, and this organization structure makes it easy to read. While he is a great reader, he finished this book in two short reading sessions!

The book also includes a few special features that really add value to it as an educational tool. The author has written a note in the back that’s several pages long and details items of historical note that served as inspiration for the author. There’s also a glossary that defines terms used in book, including aeronautical, mechanical, historical, and German terminology. A historical note precedes the story itself, setting the stage for the story by outlining the major events of the war up to 1943.

Read on for my full review of Prisoner of War by Whatsoever stories.

The author is another unique aspect of this book. Rockett is a young homeschool graduate, so this wasn’t penned by the traditional middle-aged author writing for a big publisher. Instead, Rockett is pursuing her interest in creative writing and history by writing stories that bring various aspects of World War II to life. I love seeing people follow their dreams!

I think Prisoner of War would make a great family read aloud for people studying heroes in general or World War II specifically. It’s based on much real history and the author has done much research to inform her writing. Don’t take my word for it, though – read more reviews from the Homeschool Review Crew by clicking here.