No other books for children have so compellingly told the often exciting story of history than the Landmark book series published by Random House (roughly 4th through 7th grades). The appropriate Landmark books are here keyed to their matching chapters in The Story of the Greeks.
The Adventures of Ulysses by Gerald Gottlieb (W40)
Greeks chapter XXIII. The Blind Poet.
The Adventures of Ulysses is an accurate, exciting, and wholesome retelling of Homer’s Odyssey for children. The Odyssey recounts the fantastic and semi-mythical adventures Ulysses or Odysseus and his crew encountered on their ten- year- long voyage home to Greece following the conclusion of the Trojan War.
The Exploits of Xenophon by Geoffrey Household (W18)
Greeks chapter LXXIV. The Defeat of Cyrus, and LXXV. The Retreat of the Ten Thousand.
The Exploits of Xenophon is another classic of Greek literature charmingly retold for children. The characters of Greek literature have by this time long left their shadowy mythical origins behind. Xenophon was a real historical figure who wrote a book of his heroic adventures, The Anabasis. It is a fascinating fact that the theme of this classic, like The Odyssey, is also about warriors struggling to return home at the conclusion of a war.
Alexander the Great by John Gunther (W02)
Greeks chapter XCIV. Birth of Alexander, through CVI. Death of Alexander the Great.
This is, in my opinion, one of the best biographies ever written for children. John Gunther takes a pivotal character of Western history, and humanizes him so as to make him sympathetic to children and adults alike. Yet at the same time, he throws a spotlight of wisdom on his weaknesses and faults, without ever dishonoring Greece’s greatest king or detracting from his noble and courageous life. It remains the best biography of Alexander the Great published for children in the 20th century.
We have enjoyed your SotAncient World this year, but I have begun trying to figure out whether to keep cobbling my own curricula together or go with Ambleside, Memoria Press, et al. It has been a week of sleepless nights beginning the comparison process. Tonight, or rather, this morning, I felt led to check Nothing New press again and recall what first led me to your series. After reading the descriptions of the Greeks and Romans, I felt as strong about this calling as I did last fall. As I pecked around on your website, I ended up here, and my goodness! If there isn’t a list of Landmark books to correlate! God laid those on my mind Wednesday! I was trying to figure out if I just wanted to not even have a spine and make a history program out of Landmarks exclusively! I feel this is confirmation that God is working to put together what He wants for our family–your books as a spine and supplementary reading as Landmarks, or other similar biographies. What a blessing. Thank you!
side note–CCH was very helpful to me the last few years as I researched and figured out this homeschooling adventure. I was disappointed it was never updated. I am so glad to have found you again. Don’t take it down; it is a gold mine, but I was searching those key words. I don’t think I would have found it without that domain name. Blessings,
Thank you for your kind words Makayla. We do not plan on taking CCH down, it will remain at its old domain … we just had some website troubles with it displaying properly for a few weeks but that is all fixed now. I will continue to update the homeschooling articles as much as I can. Thank you for the encouragement, it means a lot. In grace – Christine