There was a book that came with Big E’s curriculum last year that I never got to. I have a hard time with non-fiction books, and so I tend to lose interest pretty quickly. A few weeks ago I saw an IG story from my sister-in-law where she was talking about going through the book and I decided to take another look at it.

It’s a book that talks about the importance of reading and literature. It also has comprehensive lists of books they recommend you read or let your children read as they grow up. I flipped through the lists and checked the online library catalogue to see if I could reserve a few.

One of the books on the list that was available to borrow from our local library was “The Children of Green Know.” I’d never heard of this book before but it takes place in an old English manor, and since I love most things British, I decided to give it a try.

When possible, I like to read ‘up’ to the kids (read books that are slightly above their reading level) so they get challenged by new vocabulary and more complicated sentence structures. Green Know is definitely one of those books. It was first published in 1954 and is actually the first of six books. The language in the book is more difficult than what they are used to, but it hasn’t stopped them from enjoying it. I stop every once in a while and explain sections I can tell that they don’t understand and then we move on.

This evening we spent about an hour and a half reading 55 pages. We ended up stopping because my voice was terribly tired or we would have read more. We are about 110 pages in and I’m hoping to finish it by the end of the week.

Since this is a story I had never heard of before, I would be interested to know if any of you have read it. What were your thoughts? Did you/your kids enjoy it? Is it worth reading the other books?

PS- I did notice there is a British Miniseries from the 80’s that we could watch on YouTube. I watched the first seven minutes and it seemed spot on with the book.