Fantastic Reads For All Ages

Children and Family Read Alouds

Aesop’s Fables

Andersen’s Fairy Tales

Beauty and the Beast

The Besty-Tacy Series, Maud Lovelace

The Blind Men and the Elephant, Karen Backstein

The Caterbury Tales, Retold, Barbara Cooney

“Casey at the Bat” , Ernest Thayler

Charlotte’s Web, E. B. White

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

Cinderella

Dinotopia Series, James Gurney

Dr. Seuss books

The Emperor’s New Clothes

Five Chinese Brothers, Bishop

The Gift of the Magi, O. Henry

The Giving Tree, Shel Sliverstein

“God Save the Flag”, Oliver Wendelll Holmes

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Grimm’s Fairy Tales

Hansel and Gretel

Jack and the Beanstalk

Just So Stories, Rudyard Kipling

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving

“Lincoln, The Man of the People”

Little Boy Blue

The Little Engine That Could

The Little House Series, Laura Ingalls Wilder

The Little Red Hen

Little Red Riding Hood

Make Way for Duklings, Robert McCloskey

Madeline, Bemelmans

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Burton

The Mitten, Brett

McGuffey’s Readers

Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes

“Paul Revere’s Ride, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Perloo The Bold, Avi

Peter Pan, J. M. Barrie

Peter Rabbit, Beatrix Potter

The Pied Piper of Hamelin

Pinocchio

Pollyanna, Eleanor Porter

The Princess and the Pea

Puss in Boots

Rapunzel

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, Kipling

Rip Van Winkle,Carol Ottoleghi

Robin Hood, Roger Lancelyn Green

Saint George and the Dragon, Trina Hyman

Sleeping Beauty

Snowflake Bentley, Azarian

Song and Dance Man, Ackerman

The Song of Hiawatha, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

Snow White

Stone Soup, Brown

The Story About Ping, Marjorie Flack

The Story of Ferdinand, by Munro Leaf

The Story Of The Other Wise Man,Henry Van Dyke

Tales from the Arabian Nights, Geraldine McCaughreanGeraldine

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

The Three Little Pigs

The Ugly Duckling

Tom Thumb

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas

Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears -Aardma

The Wind in the Willows, Grahame

Winnie-the-Pooh, Milne

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Frank Baum

Reads for Youth
A Door in the Wall, De Angeli

Alice In Wonderland, Carroll

Animal Farm, Orwell

Asimov on Numbers, Asimov

The Anne of Green Gablesseries, Montgomery

Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

“Battle Hymn of the Republic“, Julia Ward Howe

The Bears of Hemlock Mountain, Dagliesh

Ben-Hur, Wallace, Johnson

Brighty: Of the Grand Canyon, Henry

Black Beauty, Sewell

The Black Stallion series, Farley

The Book of Three, Alexander

Caddie Woodlawn, Brink

Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, Latham

The Chronicles of Narnia series, Lewis

Collected Works of Edgar A. Guest

“The Concord Hymn“, Emerson

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Twain

The Constitution of the United States

The Courage of Sarah Noble, Dagliesh

David Copperfield, Dickens

Davy Crockett Legends

The Declaration of Independence

The Diary of a Young Girl, Frank

The Doctor Dolittleseries, Lofting

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stevenson

Dred Scott Decision

The Education of Henry Adams, Adams

Eight Cousins, Alcott

Emily Post’s Etiquette

“In Flanders Fields“, McCrae

Flatland, Abbott

The Foundation series, Asimov

Frankenstein, Shelley

“The Gettysburg Address,” Lincoln

“The War Inevitable”, Henry

The Great Brain series, Fitzgerald

Gulliver’s Travels, Swift

Mythology, Hamilton

“Hamlet,” Shakespeare

Heidi, Spyri

The Hiding Place, Boom

“The Highwayman”, Alfred Noyes

History Reborn, Anderson

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain

“I Have A Dream,” King

The Incredible Journey, Burnford

The Indian in the Cupboard, Banks

Ivanhoe, Scott

The Hobbit, Tolkein

Island of the Blue Dolphins, O’Dell

Joan of Arc, Twain

Jo’s Boys, Alcott

Journey to the Center of the Earth, Verne

“Julius Caesar,” Shakespeare

The Jungle Book, Kipling

King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table

Laddie, Porter

The Last of the Mohicans, Cooper

“Let America Be America Again,” Hughes

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates

The Little Britchesseries, Moody

Little Lord Fauntleroy, Frances Hodgson Burnett

Little Men, Alcott

Little Women, Alcott

The Lonesome Gods, L’AmourThe Lord of the Rings series, Tolkein

The Magic Bicycle, Bibee

“The Man with the Hoe,” Markham

The Matchlock Gun, Edmonds

Mathematicians Are People, Too (2 volumes), Reimer

Mr. Popper’s Penguins, Atwater

Moby-Dick, Melville

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

National Velvet, Bagnold

Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary of the English Language

North to Freedom, Holm

Number the Stars, Lois Lowry

“O Captain! My Captain!,” Whitman

“Old Ironsides,” Holmes

Old Yeller, Gipson

Oliver Twist, Dickens

Paul Bunyan and Other Tall Tales

The Phantom Tollbooth, Juster “The Present Crisis,” Lowell

“The Road Not Taken,” Frost

The Real Benjamin Franklin, Allison

The Real George Washington, Parry

The Real Thomas Jefferson, Allison

The Robe, Douglas

Robinson Crusoe, Defoe

Roll of Thunder; Hear my Cry, Mildred D. Taylor

The Sackett Series, L’Amour

Saxon Math Series

The Secret Garden, Burnett

Soldiers, Statesmen & Heroes, Parry

Sounder, William Howard Armstrong

Spiritual Lives of the Great Composers ,Kavanaugh

Stuart Little, White

Summer of the Monkeys, Rawls

The Swiss Family Robinson, Wyss

Tarzan, Burroughs

The Thief Lord, Cornelia Funke

To Kill a Mocking Bird, Harper Lee

Tom Sawyer, Twain

Treasure Island, Stevenson

The Trumpet of the Swan, White

Tuck Everlastling, Babbitt

White Fang, London

The story of William Tell

Where the Red Fern Grows, Rawls

Reads for Highschool Students/Adults

Acton, The History of Freedom

John Adams, “Thoughts on Government”

Aquinas, “On Kingship”

Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

Aristotle, Politics

Aristotle, Rhetoric

Augustine, The City of God

Aurelius, Meditations

Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Austen, Sense and Sensibility

Bacon, Novum Organum

Bastiat, The Law

Bastiat, “That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Not Seen”

Benson, “The Proper Role of Government”

Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy

Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles

Bronte, Wuthering Heights

Bronte, Jane Eyre

Carson, The American Tradition

Capra, The Tao of Physics

Cather, my Antonia

Cervantes, Don Quixote

Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Churchill, Collected Speeches

Cicero, The Republic and The Laws

Clausewitz, On War

Confucius, The Analects

Constitution of the United States

Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans

Copernicus, On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres

Costain, The Silver Chalice

Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

Dante, The Divine Comedy

The Declaration of Independence

Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

Descartes, A Discourse on the Method

Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Dickens, Great Expectations

Dillard, A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

D’Orczy, The Scarlet Pimpernel

Douglas, Magnificent Obsession

Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

Durant, The Story of Civilization (11 Volume Set)

Einstein, Relativity

Emerson, Essays

Euclid, Elements

Frank, Alas, Babylon

Franklin, Letters and Writings

Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents

Galileo, Two New Sciences

Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Goethe, Faust

Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

Hobbes, Leviathan

Homer, The Iliad

Homer, The Odyssey

Hugo, Les Miserables

Hume, Essays Moral, Political, and Literary

Jefferson, Letters, Speeches and Writings

Keegan, A History of Warfare

Kepler, Epitome

Martin Luther King, Jr., Collected Speeches

Kipling, Captains Courageous

Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Lavoisier, Elements of Chemistry

Lewis, Mere Christianity

Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Lincoln, Great Speeches

Locke, Second Treatise Of Government

Machiavelli, The Prince

Madison, Hamilton and Jay, The Federalist Papers

Marx and Engels, The Communist ManifestoMore, Utopia

The Magna Charta

Mill, On Liberty

Milton, Paradise Regained

Mises, Human Action

The Monroe Doctrine

Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws

Newton, Mathematical Principles

Nicomachus, Introduction to Arithmetic

Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

The Northwest Ordinance

Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

Plato, Complete Works

Polybius, The Histories

Potok, The Chosen

Plutarch, Lives

Ptolemy, Almagest

Shakespeare, Complete Works

Skousen, The 5000 Year Leap

Skousen, The Majesty of God’s Law

Skousen, The Making of America

Smith, The Wealth of Nations

Solzhenitsyn, “A World Split Apart”

Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

Sophocles, The Oedipus Trilogy

Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Sun Tzu, The Art Of War

Thackeray, Vanity Fair

Thoreau, Walden

Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

Tolstoy, War And Peace

Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War

Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Washington, Letters, Speeches and Writings

Weaver, The Mainspring of Human Progress

Wells, The Invisible Man
Wister, The Virginian

Evil in Much Ado About Nothing

Shakespeare understood human nature in an extraordinary way. I am often amazed by how much insight I gain by reading one of his plays. I found that the play Much Ado About Nothing allowed me to learn quite a bit about evil and the motivations of those who do evil.

Don John lets us glimpse into the mind of men who try to stir up trouble. He says, “I cannot hide what I am: I must be sad when I have cause and smile at no man's jests, eat when I have stomach and wait for no man's leisure, sleep when I am drowsy and tend on no man's business, laugh when I am merry and claw no man in his humour.” He is simply following the whims of his physical being, and he acknowledges that he is a “plain-dealing villain.” In this play, Shakespeare helps us understand the ways of those who try to create discord.

Those attempting to do evil:

• will use ignorant people to hurt others
• can lead good men astray 
• can sometimes reveal the true nature of those around us 
• desire to make others unhappy for the sake of making others unhappy 
• will use half-truths to create a believable lie 
• do not care whether you “deserve” something or not 
• can be overcome if good people will stand up to the evil 

Shakespeare’s insight into the nefarious workings of some human minds is outstanding, but he also demonstrates some things we can do to effectively work against those that sow the seeds of destruction.

Ways to effectively combat evil:

• education and wisdom 
• search for confirmation of suppositions 
• maintain a strong moral code 
• have appropriate relationships 

If Claudio and the Prince had only slowed down and tried to sort out the facts. If they had tried to seek justice or truth instead of revenge, Claudio would never have publicly humiliated the woman he professed to love. Don John’s plan would have been overturned much sooner and come to nothing. Maybe the play wouldn’t have been as interesting, but I think they all would have been happier.

Benedict's Change of Heart

"I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because I have railed so long against marriage: but does not the appetite alter?  A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.  Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour?  No, the world must be peopled.  When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. "

Act III Scene I

Title Swap

The Day Breakers by Louis L'Amour
Atlas Shrugged by Ayne Rand
Teaching the Classics: A Socratic Method for Literary Education  by Adam and Missy Andrews
DK Essential Shakespeare Handbook by Leselie Dunton-Downer and Alan Riding

"1984" by Sonia McBride

I wasn’t able to get a copy of the book so I listened to an audio version. After listening to a portion of the book I eventually stopped because I wasn’t comfortable with the content. I went to the internet to find notes on the book. I was curious if the notes made from the section of the book I read were accurate and reliable. To my surprise they were. I chose to read the notes. I have many thoughts but will just share a few.

In the book 1984 George Orwell showed a nation where many freedoms and privileges that are so important to us had been completely taken away. Some may say, “All is well in Zion”, however, many of our freedoms have already been under attack and violated. It isn't difficult to see glimpses of Oceania’s society in our own. Our rights will continue to slip away if we are not careful to defend and stand up for what we believe in and know to be right.

In President Ezra Taft Benson’s book, “An Enemy Hath Done This”, he states, “If America is to withstand these influences and trends, there must be a renewal of the spirit of our forefathers, an appreciation of the American way of life, a strengthening of muscle and sinew and the character of the nation. America needs guts as well as guns. National character is the core of national defense.” This is what I love about learning and discussing with our children. I love reading the classics together. I have observed you and your children stand for truth and what you believe to be right. I am impressed with your children and their desires to be a force for good in the world.

Benson appeals to people everywhere to heed the words of Dean Alfange:

“I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon. I seek opportunity to develop whatever talents God gave me—not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed. I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia. I will not trade freedom for beneficence nor my dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any earthly master nor bend to any threat. It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to think and act myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations and to face the world boldly and say—‘This, with God’s help, I have done.’ All this is what it means to be an American.”

We have a work to do as mothers of the children God has entrusted to us. We have a work to do as families in our society. It is so important that we read the scriptures together. As a family we were reading in 1 Nephi 19 verse 23, “…I did read unto them that which was written by the prophet Isaiah; for I did liken all scriptures unto us, that it might be for our profit and learning.” It really touched my heart. If I don’t liken the scriptures to myself and my life then it’s just reading. In verse 24 it reads, “…and liken them unto yourselves, that ye may have hope…” I love that! The scriptures bring hope. We must read the scriptures and liken them to ourselves. I have read this so many times, however, it meant more to me this time since I have been pondering about how to gain understanding without having to read books like “1984”. I think one more important thing is to “remember”.

You are wonderful mothers! Thinking of you reminds me of the mothers of the Stripling Warriors in Alma 56:47,48 “Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their lives; yea, they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them. And they rehearsed unto me the words of their mothers, saying: We do not doubt our mothers knew it.”

I am reminded of Ephesians 6:12, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.”

We must read, remember and have hope…