(upbeat music) - Welcome friends to this episode of the "Everyday Educator" podcast. I'm your host, Lisa Bailey, and I'm excited to spend some time with you today as we encourage one another, learn together, and ponder the delights and challenges that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime. Whether you're just considering this homeschooling possibility or deep into the daily delight of family learning, I believe you'll enjoy thinking along with us.

But don't forget, although this online community is awesome, you'll find even closer support in a local CC community. So go to classicalconversations.com and find a community near you today. Well, listeners, I'm excited to welcome you to this episode because I'm talking to one of my dearest friends about something that we both really love, and that's books.

I know as you launch you and your family into the summer, as your homeschooling year has come to a close, you are looking forward to a time of rest. Maybe you're looking for some good stuff to do with your family this summer. And some of you may be, as you attend practicum this summer, looking toward the fall and thinking about resources you could begin to gather now that would get your fall started off with a bang.

So I have Jennifer Courtney with me today, and I'm excited to talk to her about the books that could open the world for us. Jennifer, thanks for coming. - Thanks for having me, Lisa. I always love talking about books. - I know, and so we could go on and on.

And my job today will be to make sure that we don't go on and on, and that all of you who are listening can get this in a manageable bite of delightful conversation. So, Jennifer, I do happen to know, I knew in advance that you loved books and that you are devoted, you and your family are devoted to reading and reading together.

What is the latest token of devotion in your home? I actually know the answer to this, but I want you to share it with our listeners. - Well, I finally realized a lifelong dream of having a library with lots and lots of bookshelves and one of those sliding ladders.

Truth be told, my ceiling in the library is probably not high enough to walk that ladder, but I have always wanted one, and my husband is very gracious and made that a reality. And my daughter, my oldest daughter, helped me over her Christmas break from college to inventory all of our books into an online system so that we have everything arranged and organized, and we're actually lending out our books.

And so it was a whole family effort. My mom and dad came down and we filled out the little white library cards in them. I got a library stamp. We covered them with protective plastic so that people can borrow them. And I do have a few patrons right now.

I'm hoping now that it's more organized and we finished some renovation projects in our house that we can have even more folks coming and checking out our books. - That is the most charming story to me, I have to tell you. When you started talking about that this was gonna become a reality, I was really excited.

But when I saw the pictures of the beautiful shelves and all your books on the shelves, and then when I saw the ladder that you guys put up, I was filled with happiness for you and envy for myself. And I just think that that is super cool. And one of my favorite parts is that you are actually lending books to little readers in your sphere.

And I think that that is super cool. - I know, I have one devoted little reader who loves these 1950s mysteries called the Happy Hollisters. And they're about a family of five children and their dog who solve little mysteries. And she comes every two weeks and gets her next few Happy Hollisters.

And then I collected up a bunch of landmark history books from the 1950s that are biographies of famous Americans, Dolly Madison, Daniel Boone. And then I also collected the ones that were about world history. So there's Shakespeare and his globe and Cleopatra and things like that. And so I have had some CC essential students.

- I bet so. - Faces of history and get biographies that they could read that go with our cycles. So that's fun for me too. - That is really cool. I suspect that that is the series that I used to check out of my church library. 'Cause I went through a period, one summer at least, where all I read was biographies.

And so I suspect it was that very series. That is really cool. I love it. I love that you've got that and that you share that. Now I know, like the first time I ever saw the movie, The Beauty and the Beast, I did not want The Beast. I did not want The Prince.

I wanted that library. And still, when that picture, when he pulls back the tattered curtain and you see the library, every time I see it, I still gasp. - I know. - That is my dream. I will not ever have it 'cause my ceiling is not that high. - I know.

- But I absolutely love it. So let me ask you this, 'cause I can remember also wanting a library when I was a little girl. And of course, I always wanted the latter. Not just when I was a grownup, but when I was little, did you have lots of books around you when you were growing up?

When you were a little girl, did you have lots of books in your home? - Yes, I did. So my dad's family particularly were readers and they passed down some of the books that he and his brothers had read. I seem to be the one in the family who inherits all of this.

- Who gets the stuff. - So I have one that is just precious to me called "Children from Around the World," which was- - I have that book. - Do you? It's so lovely. - Yes. - I love, love, love old children's books. And that one is precious. It talks about little customs in each country.

And that was sort of my first introduction to globalism. But we did, we were at home where we had lots and lots of books. I think I've shared this story before on the podcast, but my mother was educated at the time of whole language instead of phonics instruction. And she still claims that that made her a slow reader.

And she was determined for me and my brother not to be a slow reader. And so every week when I got my allowance, she took us to Little Professor Bookstore. Isn't that the cutest name? - Oh, I love that. - It doesn't exist anymore, sadly, but we would go to Little Professor Bookstore and spend our allowance buying whatever series we were wildly in love with at that time.

So I have all of those books. My parents moved a lot for my dad's work. And I'm very grateful that my mother continued to move the books around and hold onto them for us. So I have all of those in the library as well as the ones I'm adding.

- That is so cool. I have made myself a note that if I ever get my own library, maybe I'll call it Little Professor's Library. That is just the sweetest thing. So your family had lots of books. I'm always amazed when I go into somebody's home and there aren't a lot of books.

Like I can't, like we have all the rooms in our house. I mean, the bathrooms, the kitchen, all of the rooms in our house, maybe not the laundry room, but all the other rooms in our house have books. And I'm always amazed when I go visit someone who doesn't have a lot of books.

And I think that my children were always amazed when they went to visit friends who didn't have as many books 'cause my kids had books of their own even when they were little. Do you remember the first book that belonged completely to you? - Yes, and I'm gonna butcher the title.

It was this really, in the '70s, they made these horribly unsturdy books for children that were like (indistinct) and it was something like "My Little Red Shoes" and it was about a little girl searching high and low for her little red shoes to wear out and she kept finding everyone else's shoes and trying them on and they didn't work for her.

And finally she found the little red shoes. I think they were under the crib or something. - Yes. - And I just remember reading that book with my parents. I have fond memories of that little book. - That's fun. And why did you love it? Just 'cause it made a family memory, a warm memory of being bred to or family time?

- I think it was partly that. I think that storyline also really appeals to children because although that book is lost to us, my children had a love for a similar book that was called "D.W.'s Glasses." - Oh, yes. - In that book, D.W. tries on all kinds of different glasses including some that had windshield wipers on them for rain.

And my kids just, I think it's that variety of funny choices of things that you would be on that kids really gravitate to that story. - That's fun, that's fun. I love things that allow their imaginations to soar and that hit their funny bone. Even when they're little, they can recognize the ridiculous or the comical or the sort of outside what could be true, but I'd like to imagine it.

That's kind of cool. So did you continue to amass your own collection of books? - Yes. And in fact, besides our trips to Little Professor Books, and my grandparents, the ones who were readers, gave us hardbacks every year for Christmas. That was one of our special gifts. And of course I grew up in the era when you could go to the Scholastic Book Fair and it was okay.

- Oh my gosh, that was the best day of the year in school. - It was the best day. I still have my box set of "Little House on the Prairie" books from the Scholastic Book Fair. But I also would go to garage sales. And one of the books that is lost to me that I really miss was a fifth grade reader of all things.

- Oh my gosh, yes. - It was an old school book, but it had really charming stories in it. And that some of them were science stories about how pollywogs turned into frogs. And some of them were retellings of Greek myths. But I adored that little book and had it for years and years.

And I think I paid a quarter for it at a garage sale. - You know what? I remember, I liked those kind of collections of books too. And I can remember that my elementary school had a book sale and they were getting rid of, and some of them, I guess, were just reading textbooks and they had collections of stories like that.

And I remember my family buying some to have at home. And for a while, some of those were my favorite books 'cause they had lots of stories. It was like one book, but lots of stories. And I did love that. So why would you, if you were gonna talk to a young parent just starting out and maybe a new mom or dad who did not grow up with a house full of books, and maybe they went to the library and checked out books, but took them back and they didn't have a library at their home, but now they think they want something different for their family.

Why, what would you tell that young parent? Why should we build libraries at home? - Yeah, well, one reason, of course, is that children who have libraries at home do become readers. If you read Jim Trulisa's book, the Read Aloud Handbook, statistics show that homes that have lots of books in them, whether or not people open them, those households become better readers.

I find that an interesting statistic. But also I would say that, and I did use the library at school and the public library quite a bit growing up, but there is something about having those favorites that you read and reread and reread. So I was on a family trip and a friend of a friend of a cousin, that's a very loose connection, happened to come over to my aunt and uncle's one night and she gave me a hardback copy of Little Women.

And I couldn't believe that she was willing to part with it and that it was being given to me. And I had a tradition where I read that on my birthday every year from the year that she gave it to me on. And so I think that partly having a library at home is about cultivating an atmosphere of reading, but it's also that you have your favorites that you want to savor over and over again.

And now I think we're in a stage where we're preserving printed books. I've talked to a lot of parents who are borrowing things from my library who say that they go to the public library and there aren't books anymore because so many resources have become digitized. And so their kids are longing to find these good old books that they, and the parents don't have to vet the books that are in my library 'cause I've vetted them all.

- Right, right. - They're age appropriate and good and wholesome. And so that's been nice. - Those are all great reasons. And if I didn't already have a library at home that my children used and that I am continuing for grandchildren, I would want to do it for those reasons.

I love that. Create an atmosphere, create some connections, value the printed resources, and then just know that you've got a collection that has been approved, that's vetted. It's not scandalous, but also it's not just what you're running away from, it's what you're running toward. You're able to build a collection that talks about noble character or becoming curious or being adventurous or being kind.

I really like that. What do you think? What does creating or collecting good books teach our children? Because I know that our children watched us and they still watch us. One year, my husband and I decided to see if we could go a month without buying a book. And I know you're laughing, and it didn't last a week.

And I really think that probably a week doesn't go by still that we don't buy some kind of a book. What does collecting good books teach our children? - Well, definitely what you collect says something about what you value. And so I think we're setting an example that this is important, this activity that we're doing.

But it also communicates that you love them. I have a love relationship with the books in my home. And so the children, I think, see that modeled for them, that it is lovely to own a book and read a book and share it with your family. - Do you think having lots of books at home when your kids were little taught them how to be readers?

- I think so. And for some of them, it came later than others. So I'm certainly not suggesting that this is a magic bullet that you will have all these books at home and all of your children will just bury themselves in them all the time. Some of mine came to love reading later.

Some of them, a couple of them actually didn't read much outside of their assigned curriculum until they were in college. And then they realized how much they missed reading lovely books. - Oh, yes. - So they began anew. - I like that. - And I think some really- - I really like that.

- Yeah, it's been nice for me. Sometimes they went back and reread things that they read in challenge. So my son particularly has been rereading his way through C.S. Lewis and wanting to really go back and remember those ideas and those conversations that he had with his community. And also he's sharing that he's much more mature now.

And so these things have a different meaning for him. - I love that. I love how what we do with our children when they're young becomes an echo that they hear. Sometimes, like you said, across the years, and it calls them back to what was lovely or warm or challenging or special in some way.

That's cool. - Yeah, and sometimes I enjoy being librarian. So earlier this week, Mia was about to go on a trip and she was flopped down on the Shays Lounge in the library. And I said, "Be sure to grab a book for your trip." 'Cause she's going to visit her sisters and they have to work some.

And she kind of just looked up and she was very tired. She'd just gotten home from camp. And I said, "Are you looking at me like that "because you need help choosing a book?" And then we had a lovely conversation where I said, I got to really be librarian, I felt like.

I was asking her questions about what are you in the mood for? And let me find one that I've handpicked for you based on what you're wanting to read. That was really fun for me. - That is really fun. I love that. I love knowing enough about a lot of different kinds of books that you can help somebody find something that will delight them in the moment.

That's really fun, I like that. Let me ask you this. I titled this podcast, "Open a Book, Open the World." How do books open the world? 'Cause I believe they do and I'm pretty sure you believe they do. - Yeah, so like you, I read aloud to my kids every day when we were home educating and I tried to continue that practice well into high school.

And just, it got harder to grab time since they got older but we made it a priority in our home. And I think back to some of those books that really opened the world for them. And sometimes it's because they were about someone who lived a very different life from us.

So I remember Benjamin Loving Henry Huggins who basically lived in the 1950s in Oregon. And that was very different from our life here in the 2000s in Oklahoma. And he loved reading about Henry and the adventures that he got to have. One of the unfortunate consequences of us reading about Henry Huggins is that Henry grew up in a different time and he was allowed to take the bus into the city and go to the Y and go swimming and take the bus into the city to run errands for his mom.

And that made my son want to do that. (laughing) Which wasn't a reality for us. Of course, everyone, I think most people who have had the boxcar children read to them have fond memories of that one opening the world to them about making your own home and space. And my girls made their own boxcar next door.

- Oh yes, oh yes. - And so it tended to be that those books that were so different from our experience were what opened the world to them. We read through "Little House on the Prairie" multiple times and just thinking about those struggles that that family faced. But then we also had nonfiction books that opened the world to them.

I had a little, they weren't anything special. They were literally stapled books that I think I did get from Scholastic that were about the planets. And my children read those over and over again about what is the planet made out of? What's the temperature like on the planet? How much would you weigh on the planet?

And that opened up astronomy for them to read those little books. - Yeah, yeah. And that brings up a really good point. Books are not just good for wiling away a rainy afternoon. So I do know that you read to your kids a lot and that they enjoyed a good story when you presented it.

But books are good and books that you have at home can be good for other things. Like you said, introducing your children to the natural world, but doing research or answering questions or opening them up to curiosity about things they know nothing about, when they're little like physics or explosions or all kinds of things, piquing their curiosity.

Books are great for that. - Yeah, and I think sometimes as homeschool parents, we feel pressured to have a set schedule and quote teach all these subjects. And really an afternoon practice of allowing children to select books, they will naturally want to read about science and they will naturally want to read fiction.

So just having a few well-placed books is actually a better way than trying to cram in a bunch of subjects. In fact, I was reading about, I'm always fascinated about people who did not have a chance to get a formal education and the ways they compensated for that. And my favorite author, Dickens, was one of those people.

- Of course he was. - Of course he was. And his father got into financial trouble, which meant Dickens had to go to work younger than he wanted to. And that's a pretty typical story in the history of the world, actually. And he was so excited because in London at that time, when you turned 18, you could sign up to be a reader at the British Library.

And that is how he compensated for his education is he got a library card to the British Library, which is gigantic and has all you could ever want to put in it and then some. And that's how he made up for his education. And when you read his books, he has such a lively mind and a huge vocabulary.

So it's fun for me to think about him whiling away his spare hours in the British Library. - Yeah, and you will learn a lot of stuff on the way through a good story. I know when I used to play, when we used to play Trivial Pursuit, sometimes my husband would look at me like I had two heads and say, "Why do you know that?" And I would be like, "I don't really know.

"I think it was just, it was a random fact "in a mystery novel that I read when I was little." You know, there's all kinds of random facts that you pick up along the way to a good story. - Absolutely. - Okay, I know that lots of us are gonna spend time reading this summer.

You know, it's on everybody's to-do list. We're gonna spend time reading to ourselves. We're gonna be reading with our kids. Lots of us will be reading ahead as we prepare for the fall learning season. I suspect that you have some good suggestions for the readers among us. So I want you to share some of your favorite summer reads or even a reading plan that really worked for you.

- Yeah, so every summer that I've been home educating my kids, which I did a tally to introduce myself yesterday at practicum, and that tally is at 22 years. - Oh my gosh. - That was a shocking number to me. I have picked a devotional book and a classical education book and one subject book like Latin or science to get myself prepared for the next school year.

And one of my very favorite devotional books when my kids were small was "A Mother's Heart" by Jean Fleming. That's a beautiful book for talking to, for introducing your children to Jesus around your home. And I will always treasure that book. I've read through most of the parent resources in the classical conversations catalog as my education reads.

So starting with something like the core and working your way up toward something like norms and nobility, but I read a classical education book every year and then tackled a different subject. So I might be into biographies one summer or I might dive into Latin, but that was kind of how I organized my summer reading.

And then I always had something light and for those moments when my brain was tired. And usually for me, that's a mystery series because I can let my brain shut off a little bit. - Yeah, yeah, I always have to get, I have, I used to, when I was little, younger, I would only, I would read one book at a time and I would just like devour it.

Like I was power eating through this book. I was just gonna swallow it whole. And I only had one book going at a time. As a grownup, I can't do that. I mean, I'm reading for work. I'm reading to grow in the Lord. I'm reading as a teacher, you know, and then like you said, I'm reading for a brain break.

I'm reading something like that would be candy, you know, to my mouth. And so I have lots of books going at the same time. And so that's what I would say to parents and to families. Dabble in a lot of things. At the same time, you could enjoy reading a magazine.

You could enjoy reading a how-to book that would help your family do a project this summer. You could be reading a devotional that would help you grow in the Lord as a parent. You could be reading a devotional with your kids in the summer to help them on their way to learning what it means to belong to the Lord Jesus.

All kinds of things. And you could be doing them all at the same time and have a really well-rounded reading diet. I think that's cool. All right, we know that we are, as Classical Conversations parents, finishing up our academic year. But as we go to practicum and we hear about all the new books that are out there, and as we look towards cycle one, some of us are thinking, if I could begin to gather some good stuff, then I'd be ready for the fall and I would not skid into August and feel frantic.

So share some of your favorite cycle one resources, okay? So those of you who have been involved in Classical Conversations for a while know that this coming fall, everybody everywhere in this next academic year will be in cycle one. So Jennifer, tell us, what does that even mean? What is cycle one?

And then share some of your favorite cycle one resources. - Yeah, so we're all gonna be looking at ancient history and world history next year in the Classical Conversations Foundations program. And my, I may be biased, but because I was involved in helping to make them, but I do love our Copper Lodge books that go with cycle one.

And those include Ancient World Echoes, which is stories from Greece, Rome, China, and Africa, as well as a few other places. So looking at stories that really came from the ancient world. And then we have Exploring Insects with Uncle Paul. And I love that we're encouraging our children to look down and see the multitude of life that God has made smallest level.

Kids love bugs. Let's be honest, they love them. And then Kings of Rome, which is those founding stories about the Roman Empire that are short and sweet and introduce our kids to that era of history. So I love gathering up those kinds of things to read with my kids in the mornings when we're doing foundations.

And then, so we would gather and read those things. So we would read, you can read Ancient World Echoes for a couple of mornings a week 'cause there's two stories a week and one fable. And then Uncle Paul and Kings of Rome lend themselves to reading on the off days of the week, if you want to spread them out like that, 'cause there's one story a week from those.

And then I liked having the beautiful science and artist cards and timeline cards 'cause we liked to look at the beautiful pictures while we were doing our memory work. And then also read a little bit more on the back, just the stories that are on the back of the science cards and the composer cards and the history cards were fun for us to explore just a little deeper after we had recited our timeline or our history sentences.

- I like that. We liked the cards with the pictures. It appealed to my children's imaginations and they always found something in the picture that I didn't see, right? They're looking at it more closely than I am that made them ask a question or that stretched me to think more deeply about the picture, but also about what it said on the back of the card and what we were learning about that event from the history sentence, from the timeline song or from something else that we were reading that week.

So I like it that you mentioned some resources that aren't books that can still help us with what we're trying to explore with our children in cycle one. What are some other resources that parents might enjoy that aren't necessarily books or even CC products? What other resources did you use as a parent to open the world to your children?

- Well, costumes, of course, dress up. One of mine really, really liked to dress up and so "Faces of History" was a favorite 'cause that was a great opportunity. - Yes, oh, that's great, Jennifer. - And then one of mine really loved to have, to make crafts for presentations.

And so having those craft supplies is part of, I always considered that part of our library. We had good wall-sized maps always that we could see in front of us all the time. And then we always had lots of colored pencils, crayons, modeling clay, Play-Doh, I mean, you name it.

We had all those supplies. I miss that actually in my house. I don't have anyone coloring anymore, so no crayons. - Oh, I still have the craft closet. Yeah, we had a craft closet and the girls knew anything in that except for glitter is open to use at all times without direct supervision.

Glitter was a restricted subject or was a restricted resource after a few mishaps. But I agree with you, and that my girls knew that that was a place they could go and get whatever supply they needed that they could use as they re-imagined the lesson of the morning into their afternoon play, because that's what happened at our house.

Whatever we studied in the morning, I could look outside and find them enacting it. In the afternoon, I love that, it's such a good idea that a resource like a craft or a costume, I think eventually I had no more white sheets in my home because they would come in and they would need a sheet and I would say, "Okay, are you going to cut it up "or draw on it?

"Is this gonna be a sheet that I could ever use again?" And sometimes they're like, "Well, I really need to cut it "or I really need to tie it to this tree." And so I would know that the white sheet sets are not ever going to be intact again, but for them to have that, and so that's a great reminder that there are resources that aren't books that might be part of your, if not library, then at least your arsenal of materials.

I love that you said you always had math on your wall, talk about that. What did you guys use the maps for when you weren't studying geography and trying to draw them or blob map? - Well, we used them all the time. So if we were reading a story like Heidi, we had to go find Switzerland.

Where are we in the world when we're reading this story? So that was sometimes what we did, or we would read a biography of someone who fought in World War II, and we needed to go look up those locations. So that was a lot of, it was a good supplement to our reading because we liked to locate ourselves in the world when we were in trance.

- Yes. And that is so awesome. That is one of the best, best things about my daughter's classical education was that emphasis on geography, which I don't really think I ever had as a student, that they memorized all those places in the world. And it was such, it proved to be so much more than a parlor trick.

You know, it wasn't just that they could tell you the capitals of all the countries in Africa, okay? It became when they read a novel, or they read a biography, or they read a history book, they could immediately put the places mentioned into context. They knew what it was close to.

They knew what bodies of water were nearby and what mountain ranges separated it from another important place in that text. And so, I feel like it gave them, the study of geography gave them a much better context for people and places in the world. And even to today, when they hear news reports of what's going on, they have a much better mental picture than even I do of what that means in the world in which they live.

- Yeah. - I love it, I love it. I know that when my girls were little, we sometimes, I had to push them to see this, but we sometimes used people as resources. And so, I would think ahead to what we were studying and try to think of someone in our sphere who knew something about that, who worked as a scientist.

We had some friends who were chemists at the local college, and so they could talk to them about chemistry, and we had doctors who could talk to them about anatomy, and we had people who worked in local government who could tell them what it's really like to be on the town council and stuff.

And so, people can be resources. And so, as parents, I would encourage you, when you're thinking ahead to the fall, think about what you're gonna study and what your children and you are going to explore and ask yourself, do I know any people who have that as a hobby or have that as a vocation?

Is there anybody who could talk to my kids? Could my older children shadow somebody for a day and find out what this job is really all about? That's a good resource too. Let me ask you this, think back, all right, back, 'cause I know that your youngest is up into the challenge area years now, but I want you to think back, what is something that you remember enjoying the most about cycle one with your kids?

Well, one memory that I have is, I've actually heard this shared by other Classical Conversations families as well, but we had, I think the song has altered slightly, but we had a little song about the fall of Rome that it was caused by taxes and slavery and unemployment and diseases.

My kids, for whatever reason, they loved the melody of that song and they would, I would find them in the room giggling and then I would come in and they were singing that song and when it said contributed to the fall of Rome, they would plunge backward onto the bed.

And so they were literally falling. That's hilarious. I just have such fond memories of them singing that song and giggling that year. Yes. That was also the cycle where Abby often challenged me. She wanted to make the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Oh my gosh. Rice Krispie Treats for a presentation one day.

So we needed not just the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, but we needed an edible Hanging Gardens of Babylon. So I went along with that and we've made that. That's a good one. You are a good mama. You are a good mama. That one pushed me. It is funny that our children come up with these wild things that we would never in a million years try to do.

But if our children are interested, we'll try it. It's just amazing to me. What do you think that your kids remember? Do you think Abby still remembers the edible Hanging Gardens? Oh, she definitely does. That was a hallmark moment in our education. But I also think that they will remember circling back to our open a book, open the world idea.

I had bought, I think at the homeschool convention, some books called "You Wouldn't Want to Live in." Oh, yes. Some of them was "You Wouldn't Want to Live in Pompeii." That was, that tragedy was a compelling, fascinating story in our home. The idea that that entire town was buried.

So I hope to take them there someday so that they can see it in person. But that was one of them. "You Wouldn't Have Wanted to Be a Roman Soldier." It was those kinds of books. Yes. Just strange facts about living in the ancient world that we devoured and enjoyed during cycle.

It's so funny. I don't know if I would have remembered this at all if you hadn't said that. But I think we must have read that same book, "You Wouldn't Have Wanted to Live in Pompeii." And I remember, especially my older daughter, being fascinated that it just kind of buried people that, she couldn't understand how, like, why didn't they run away?

Or why couldn't they get away? And when she was little, that was just so weirdly fascinating to her. And then we actually did get to see it. The year that she graduated from Challenge Four, we had saved for years and took a trip to Europe and we did see Pompeii.

Oh, nice. Yes, and it was a full circle moment, you know, from what you remembered and what you understood, even dimly as a child, to seeing those ruins in person. That was really cool. So yeah, yeah. Well, I appreciate you, Jennifer, taking a few minutes with us to talk about books and libraries and reading and then help us to think our way toward preparation for cycle one.

So thank you very much. And we'll all show up at your house in the next couple of months to check out a book from your library, okay? I would love that. Everyone, all are welcome. That is so great. And listen, parents, if a trip to Oklahoma is not in your future and you can't go visit Jennifer's library, there are lots of other ways for you to prepare yourself to be the lead learner in your home.

You can start building your own library using some of these titles that we've mentioned today. That would be awesome. But if you're looking for something to do, maybe if you're looking for a community that could learn and grow along with you, you really are committed to becoming a better lead learner in your own home and learning how to lead your children to be ever more classical learners.

I'd love for you to check out the Classical Learning Cohort. We really believe that parents can learn to be better educators for their own children. Even when we all feel a little unsure about that goal, the Classical Learning Cohort program can really help. This is what I would encourage you to do.

Go to classicalconversations/cohort and find out what the Classical Learning Cohort has to offer you and your family. Thanks for listening with us today. As Jennifer and I talk about our favorite subject books, and I wish you happy reading this summer. Thanks guys, and I'll see you next week. (upbeat music) you