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 of Everyday Educators, because we're going to talk about one of my very favorite things, books.

And I suspect books are near and dear to your heart and to your family's heart and to your family's pursuit of learning. And I've got two good friends with me today who also love books. I've got Tim Knotts here. Tim, welcome. Hey, Lisa. Good to be with you. Tim is the Director of Challenge Development with CCMM.

And Jennifer Courtney, who is our Chief Academic Officer at CCMM, is here too. Jennifer, thanks for coming. Thanks for having me. You know I like talking about books. I know. And y'all are some of my favorite people to talk about books with, because if I start to drool or my eyes start to shine, you don't think I'm weird at all.

So that's perfect. In fact, I told somebody the other day, if Jennifer Courtney has a superpower, it has to do with books. And I can imagine you wearing a big cape that says, Keeper of the Books. And I've always aspired to be that with you. I love talking to you about your library and about the libraries that we each are building in our homes for our kids and grandchildren and neighbors.

And I want you to tell me why that idea of being a keeper of the books is so inspirational for you. Yeah, so weirdly, I have always wanted to be keeper of the books. And the reason I said weirdly is because when I was very young, I actually turned my one bookshelf in my room into a library and was checking out books to our neighbors.

Oh my gosh, I did that too! I know. So as you know, I'm on a quest to build a personal library in my house. Yes, yes. Blogging books and shelving books and checking them out to homeschoolers. But the reason that it's this idea of keepers of the books is so important in classical conversations is because as classical Christian educators, we want to preserve the best books from that tradition.

And given our civilizational moment that we're in, some of them might give. And so we started this idea really with a few of our challenge titles and also with our echoes books that we wanted to start, that we as classical conversations multimedia wanted to be on the front lines of preserving these texts for families to share across the generations.

You know, I just love that. It makes me sort of proud to be in on that mission. I love the idea of preserving the good old classical books and the good authors of the past and the good stories of the past that are far too often missing from bookshelves in some of our libraries even.

And it makes me really sad. Tim, does your family still go to the library looking for classical education or classical novels, books, good books? We do. Our local librarians know us well and often roll their eyes when my children walk away with a stack of 50 books. I understand.

But I think it's very gracious that the two of you had lending libraries as children because I was probably not so much a keeper of the books as a hoarder of the books. Oh, yeah. I wanted them all for myself and didn't like to let anyone take them away.

That is so funny. I know there were books that I was very loathe to lend and I think some bad experiences with books that I loved that didn't come back to me played into that. But I see what you're saying, where you're coming from, Jennifer, that we want to be sure that people that we know and love and people that live around us have access to some of these books and we don't want them to be lost and we do want them to be available.

So I like thinking that all of us, all of our listeners and all of us here can become keepers of the books and that reading is really important. I want to ask both of you, I know because I've talked to you before and you're my friends, I know that you have always been big readers with your own children.

Let me ask you, Jennifer, why has reading with your kids always been so very important to you? I want us to, between the three of us, list as many good reasons and purposes and benefits of reading with our kids as we can. So what are some of the reasons reading was so very important to you?

Yeah, so we, in my home, we started reading aloud very early, pretty much when the kids were in the womb. And when we made it a formal part of our home education day, if you want to say it that way, our homeschool day, was number one, because I wanted to associate, I wanted my children to associate the reading of good books, scripture, histories, myths, novels that might be serious or might be, you know, roll on the floor laughing.

I wanted them to associate all of that with the joy of being in our family together. And you get to know their, you're both getting to know who your kids are by the way they respond to the stories and you're also getting to shape their character by discussing the decisions that characters made or the mistakes that they made and making connections to our own lives.

So to me, that was the most important hour of our day was, was having those conversations and just creating a lovely, memorable shared culture together. Yeah, I love that shared culture. We might chase that rabbit a little bit more. Tim, why did you and Cynthia find reading with your kids so very important?

I would say for us, it actually wasn't a choice that we made. It was something that we inherited. Both of us had parents who read extensively to us. And so for us, it was just what we do with our children, just as our parents did with us. It's only been as they've gotten older that we had to be more deliberate in making that choice to say this is still valuable and important enough to set aside time as a family to do it, even when everybody's busy.

Yeah, that's really true. It does become more of a choice when there are more choices from which to choose. You're right. You're right. I think for me, I, as a little girl, loved the world that I could enter through books. And I just, I loved all the places I could visit, all the people I could meet, all the situations I could try out without danger or without having to stay there.

And it was just, it became the palace of my imagination. And it was a rich and wonderful place to me as a little girl. And I think, and we also started reading to our girls in the womb. And, and, and I remember reading to them when they were really, really little, just constantly, just if they came through the house, if I was walking through the house and they said, read me this book, I would just sit down and read with them because I wanted them to have a palace of imagination too.

And I wanted them to go places and see things that I probably might not be able to introduce them to face to face, but in their imagination, they could come close to knowing. So for me, reading aloud was magic. And then we read aloud for a lot of the same reasons that you mentioned, Jennifer, it was important to me to introduce them to choices they might make good and bad and let them learn from other people's mistakes in literature or, or come in contact with a, an interesting way to solve a problem that might not occur to them given their natural inclination, but that might seem like a viable choice to them if they had read about it in a book or seen it successfully practiced by somebody else.

So that learning that they did. And I, you know, I remember knowing a lot of answers to weird trivia, not because I had ever studied this subject, but because it had been like background in some book I had read. Like I have no idea why I know this weird fact, but it was must, must have been in some story I read one time.

And so I thought it was really cool to know all that stuff. And I wanted to expose my daughters to a lot of ideas and a lot of interesting tidbits. So what, what are some of the benefits that, you know, that your kids received from being read to Jennifer?

Well, one thing is that, um, they developed, um, a good ear, um, for future writing. And so Tim and I actually were talking about this just this morning that you can teach people techniques for writing, but the best way to prepare our students to be a good writer is to have them read lots and lots of different authors and develop a voice of their own.

And then the other thing I appreciated is that, um, after hours of, um, listening, they also were able to read aloud and therefore do it. It's important. You know, we've lost in some of our churches, we've lost a little practice of reading scripture aloud. Um, and so it's important for us to read aloud together in community.

And once they have heard lots of reading aloud, they can also, um, share that gift with others. And then the main benefit, those are sort of practical things, right? Yes. Yes. And learning to have a good ear. But, um, the other, the other thing is, as I mentioned, it was just, um, character building because we could, um, we could look at those things and make those decisions.

And sometimes just even fellowship of laughing together over a funny scene or sometimes it would inspire them to want to do things. I wasn't going to let them do like, like when Henry Huggins is riding in a bathtub through the streets. Oh my gosh. My son really wanted to do that.

Or he really wanted to be like Henry Huggins and go on the bus by himself. Oh my word. There were those moments too, where we had to look at visions and go, yeah, we're not doing that. Yeah, my daughter wanted to live in a box car. I mean, she just really was convinced that we should move an old train car into the back of our property so she could live there.

And I was like, you know, that's not going to happen, right? Yes, we have that desire too. And occasionally our read alouds would inspire them to want a pet that I was not going for. Yes. Raccoon or a catby daughter. I can think of a few others. Yes. Yes.

That is so funny. That is so funny. Okay, Tim, what benefits practical and just fun did you see from reading aloud with your kids in all their ages? So one of my favorite Andrew Kern quotes is that the point of education is to get all the jokes. Oh, yes.

And by reading widely, you get more jokes. You get it when someone makes that slant wise reference to something else. And especially when they do it tongue in cheek or a little bit satirically. And so there's definitely been times where my kids are reading something and whether there's a true illusion or whether it's just a trope or something, they recognize it and say, oh, this is like in that other book.

And so I love to see their network growing within them. Oh, that's a good picture. Yeah. And then sort of on the lighter side, you know, we have collected inside literary jokes as a family. Yeah. So there'll be things where we'll see something or hear something and one of us or another will turn and look at another and we'll both spout out the same line from some book or name from some book that we've read together and laugh about it because there's, you know, something that struck us at the same time.

So building that kind of closeness, number one, and number two, the basis for conversations to be able to reopen something and say, yeah, and do you remember how? Yes. Yes. That's really good. I love that. Our family also has lots of inside literary jokes, things that touched our collective funny bone in the same way.

And even turns of phrases. I mean, there are books that our family can quote in long passages that other people probably think were kind of strange for, but you're right. It makes for a great camaraderie and a great shared memory is really good. So how, Jennifer, you said you started reading to your kids in the womb.

How early do you advocate when people, when young parents talk to you guys at a practicum or something about, you know, reading aloud with your family or morning basket time or family time? How early do you begin reading aloud? I mean, do you, do you read aloud to toddlers?

And what are some of the tips? What are your good tips for beginning well when your children are little? Yeah. So one of the things that, um, I started my kids with is poetry because whether or not they understand all the words, they can be delighted by the sounds and, um, they can, they enjoy the rhythm.

And so that was one way that we started. And like the Knott's family, we started going to the library when the kids were very small, um, you know, one and let them pick their own books and just keeping some short things that are lively and fun that have pictures or even wordless books where they can tell the story themselves, um, and then gradually, you know, working up their ability to listen.

So you read just a little longer and a little longer and a little longer, um, to help them develop the ability to attend. And, um, so I do think it's very important to let them have some, some choices and some that you introduce, cause they're not always going to pick the best books.

Um, and the biggest tip is they're going to want you to read the same ones over and over and over again. Oh, okay. That's an important pre-reading skill because before they can decode the words, they are memorizing them and that is to their development. And so you cannot neglect the reading the same ones over and over again.

Even if it leads to your child saying, when you have skipped a page, that's not how it goes, yes, yes, you will get caught, but then you can just revel in the fact that you did your job well and they have now memorized that book. That's really good. I like that.

Um, I like beginning with poetry. Um, I, we had some books of poetry that we would read, um, and sometimes we would take it places like the doctor's office or, um, another kind of waiting room somewhere that I knew we would be interrupted so that they would not clamor and dismay when the story got interrupted.

It was just little short things that we could do. And those are easy things to do in the car and during transition times. That's really good. Tim, what did you do? Cause I know that, that some of your kids were little when others of your kids were older. Or how did you read together, all together and keep the little ones entertained?

Um, well, sometimes well, and sometimes not well. I want you to tell those kinds of stories too, because we all have those moments where we saw it going differently and it didn't work out as well. For sure. It's, it's never easy. I think one of the things, uh, it actually is what Jennifer was just saying about not being afraid to read the same book over and over.

When you, when you read the same book to your big kids that then you introduce to your little kids, the big kids know it. And while they may kind of roll their eyes a little bit at it because it's quote unquote babyish, um, they have a relationship with that book and, uh, and though they may act out some disdainful things, they're not really all that disdainful about it.

They, they love to hear them again too. Um, and, uh, so trying to find that balance of reading some, some things that are above the level of some of your kids so that they can hear that better, more beautiful language and encounter some bigger ideas, but also not neglecting the small things and letting those also still be precious, um, even with older kids and reminding them that though they're in a hurry to grow up, uh, that there actually isn't any great hurry to do that.

Yeah. Somebody famous said that, you know, if a book is not worth reading when you're a grownup, it's probably not worth reading when you're a child, you know, that needs to be, it needs to be a good book that can, can meet your imagination, no matter how old you are.

I love that. That's good words. Lisa, that one of my, um, expectations that was not met when I was training my kids to read stories is that probably like many of us, I had this idealized view that I would pull out the book and they would, you know, all gather around my skirts.

I mean, my jeans, then they would just hang on my every word and be entranced. And I had a boy first and he was a very active boy. And I remember sitting on the driveway reading to him while he was riding a scooter around me. And then I had, but he was listening and I would ask him and he would tell me back the story.

So we kept up. And I had a little girl who could sit still all day who could draw if you wanted her to, but was also perfectly content to sit there with her hands in her lap listening. My third child, I look up one day and she is riding her tricycle in circles around my house and leaving a track in the carpet.

But she's also listening to the story. So I had to adjust my expectations a little bit. I'm so glad that you brought that up because for lots of young moms, we have this idealized vision of what reading aloud is going to be the cozy time. And it's not always a cozy time, but it can always be a fun time.

I have a little grandson and I read to him and sometimes he acts like he's all enthralled by the story. And sometimes he acts like he's busy doing something else, even if he's asking me to read the story. But I was at his house one day last week and he's running back and forth from his room to the living room, bringing toys and doing things.

And he's mumbling. And I think he's talking to me at first. And then I listen a little closer and he is reciting the last story. As he runs back and forth, he is telling the story to himself as he's busy. So moms, dads, don't be discouraged. Your kids are probably listening, even if they look like they're not listening.

I don't know about you guys, but at practicums, I often get asked about reading aloud to children who have already learned to read themselves. You know, do you still, do you keep reading aloud after your kids can read alone? Do they want you to? Do you need to? Do they like it?

Do you? Tim, did you guys keep reading aloud after your kids could read for themselves? As often as I can. Yes. I love it. So we have our oldest is getting closer and closer to the end of her challenge three year right now. Yes. And our youngest is in her second tour of essentials.

And we are in the middle of reading Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey together right now. I read it to them at least a couple of nights a week. We manage to find the time to get in some good reading out of that. And that's in addition to whatever else my wife is reading to them as part of their homeschool day.

That is so good. So you kept reading. Why do you keep reading aloud? All of your kids now know how to read well on their own. Why do you still do it? For all those reasons you said before? Yes. For those reasons. And also because I know that if I don't, then number one, it's hard to ever pick it back up to do it again.

And number two, we may read some of the same books because there are just good books that are part of what we will read as a family. But it deprives us of the chance to be sitting there engaged with the same book at the same time. Yes. Yeah. That's really good.

And, you know, there's also the truth that you may read something aloud to your children that one or more of them would never choose for themselves. And so you are exposing them to another piece of literature and broadening their horizons in a way that they might not strike out for on their own.

Jennifer, you kept reading aloud. I know you've got kids that are widely different in age from Ben to Mia also. So there was a wide. So you were reading aloud to Mia when Ben and Abby were well able to read to themselves. Did you just keep reading aloud to everybody anyway?

We did, depending on what year they were in challenge and what their personal schedules are. Sometimes that reading got shorter, which is one of the reasons that I really liked pulling together the stories that are in the Echoes books. Because if I could grab only, you know, 20 minutes in the morning or 30 minutes, at least we were all still having that time together.

And everyone of all ages could benefit from each other's insights. Oh, that's good. We occasionally make time to do longer novels still. But of course, the challenge kids were reading a lot of their own. So usually we opted for shorter things. And there is some great advice in Jim Trulise's read aloud handbook for reading kids.

And some of the examples he gives are quite fun because he would read to them while they were doing the dishes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. You can. I'm pastoring chores is a good way to tackle a child read aloud. Uh-huh. That's really good. That redeems the time in some manner for them.

Older kid read aloud time is ready. Do you guys read aloud with your high schoolers? Because I still did. I still read aloud with my high schoolers. And one of the reasons I liked to do it, I actually asked my younger daughter if we could read her Challenge 4 literature together.

I had not read the Challenge 4 literature with my older daughter as she read it. I had read them, but we didn't read together. And I realized that I missed that. I missed being able to discuss the character struggles and the conflicts and the growth or the regression of those characters.

And so I really enjoyed reading aloud with my 18-year-old. What makes older kid read aloud time so good? What can come of it? What do you think, Jennifer? Well, they just have great insights. They do. So you don't want to miss out on, even if you can't read it with them, you don't want to miss out on discussing it with them.

Yeah. But I will also say, when you read aloud, both they and you hear things differently than they would have if they were writing aloud for themselves. You notice things when you're reading aloud that you don't notice when you're reading quietly. And then the other way that I was able to share with my older kids if things were busy and I couldn't do, my top choice would be to read with them.

My second choice would be to discuss it with them. But one of the magical things about print books is that my children were often reading from copies that I had highlighted. Oh, yeah. Marginal notes in and we had that being passed down. And I shared on a book club with Tim earlier this week that my kids and I all read the copy of the discoverers that belonged to my grandfather.

Oh, cool. So being able to pass down those notes in a print version is another way to share stories with each other. Yeah, I love that. If you have a shared copy and everybody makes an underline or even a pithy note in the margin, it's almost like having a conversation not just with the author of the book, but with all the other people in your family who might be reading that book, too.

Okay, we're going to get down to this whole idea of owning our own books. Tim, I want to give you first crack at this question. Why should we own books of our very own? I mean, we are always encouraging people to start their own libraries. And I'm always talking to my listeners about books they should own and things that they should gather around.

Why do you think we should own our own books? There's a whole host of reasons. I will give you two to start with. And I'm sure that you and Jennifer will have plenty of others to add. But first off, I think that it's way easier to have a real relationship with a print copy of a book that you own.

If you know where it is on your shelf, you know where to go get it. And if you know that it's your copy of the book that you've read, you probably actually know where in the book certain things are that you're looking for. And so it builds a comfort with that book and an ease with it that you don't get when it comes to a borrowed book or an electronic form of a book.

And then sort of the second reason it plays off that electronic form is those things come and go and they can be edited or altered without anyone giving you a heads up that it's been changed. Oh, that's true. And I think that, you know, even if you don't have your sort of tinfoil hat on and are afraid that everyone is changing your books all the time, which is in this day and age, certainly not as outlandish as it may have been in another age.

That's true. But I think our brains know that our relationship with the book is temporary when it's electronic. And so it's far easier for us to say, well, that was just that thing that I encountered the one time and I don't have to store that. I don't need to, I don't need to think more about that or, uh, or continue to hold that in my memory because it was just an electronic thing that, that I flashed in front of my eyes and now it's gone.

Yeah. Yeah. Books that belong to me are like members of my family. There are certain books that I read and reread or refer to again and again. There's some books that are so well loved that they will fall open to my favorite passage. Um, they are comforting to me.

Um, and, and like you said, I have a relationship with them. Jennifer, why, why is it important to you? I know you have a lot of reasons that you want to own your own print copies of books. Share some of them with us. Yeah. So, well, I, I share, um, Tim's concern that some of these things may vanish, first of all.

Um, and I will say that as many, I've tried many, many times to love, um, an e-reader and I have never succeeded. The books to me seem that they have lost all of their life and personality. Yeah. Everything vapid. The same. Um, so I, I will admit that I do sometimes travel with one because I've had some injuries that make it harder for me to carry a lot of heavy things, but I always own physical copies of the books that are on my, um, and then I'll add a new, potentially a slightly new reason.

Um, I mentioned before that I like to mark in my books, I find it, um, almost impossible not to. And so really as an adult, I've found myself extremely frustrated when I read a book that belongs to someone else, because I will either want to jot down a question to the author in the margin, or I want to underline a particularly lovely turn of phrase.

Um, and it was, it was curious to me, I'll, I'll tell a little story. So I got the privilege of meeting with one of my favorite living authors a couple of weeks ago. His name's Alan Bradley and, um, he and I both share a love of Dickens. One of the things he said he's been doing in his older age now is that he will just go back and open his favorite authors.

And also we share a love for Dickens' Bleak House. He's, he mentioned that novel by name and said that he will go back and just open it up and read any given page because he's read the story so many times that he can just appreciate Dickens' lovely language and descriptions.

So I like also just flipping back through my books sometimes and finding, um, new treasures. Yeah. Yeah. I love owning physical copies of books too. You mentioned this already, Jennifer, since you are, are developing your own lending library, you intend to share them with people. Um, I like having physical copies of books that I can share with people.

And there are some books that I love so much that I just buy extra copies so I can share because I'm a little territorial with my personal copy that has, that has my notes. I mean, I, I almost would feel like I was giving away a relationship. If I gave away that copy of the book, because it's the book, that's the copy that I have built and maybe a years long relationship as I have consulted it again and again and have written my notes in the margins and my questions and, um, highlighted my favorite passages.

So, you know, having books of our own allows us to share those books that mean the most to us. And so that's really cool. So I, listeners, I encourage you, we all encourage you to gather around you books that you and your family can love, that you can read over and over, that you can share with others and that you can preserve, um, and that is one of the things that makes Classical Conversations Multimedia's Copper Lodge Library, um, so vital and so important.

Jennifer, tell us why, why did Copper Lodge Library, the imprint even get started? It has a lot to do with what we've been talking about, doesn't it? Yes. So, um, we, you know, Tim, Tim is good about bringing these stories to our attention, but we read all the time stories about, um, people not reading any books past college.

And I also was thinking about how there used to be a, a canon of children's literature that stories that everyone knew. And if you refer to Rapunzel, everyone would know what you were talking about, referred to Rumpelstiltskin or Rip Van Winkle, that those cultural references that everyone would know.

And it was a, a shorthand for us to talk about our community values together. Right. And that, that seemed like it was being lost and parents just didn't know what to read. So we started off by collecting, um, those stories in the Echoes books and preserving those. And then as we got into our endeavor, of course, we found more and more good books to preserve.

Yes. Copper Lodge library imprint is ever growing. But I'm, as you said at the beginning, I'm very proud to be part of that endeavor to preserve these good stories, um, and these good novels and poems and plays for, for the next generation. So not only will our communities be reading and discussing them, but now they can all have them in their hands and be, as Tim says, literally on the same page together.

Yes. That's good. And then as a family or in community. Yeah. I like that being, and that, that's one of the reasons why we advocate people buying the Copper Lodge library edition. So if they're using it in community, everybody can say the middle of page 22 and, and the passage that you want to discuss with your friends is easy, easy to find because it's in the middle of everybody's page 22.

And what are some other good reasons to, to use the Copper Lodge library editions, Tim? Oh, there's a whole bunch. I think we've tried very hard to make sure that the books are beautiful and not just the, the words that the original authors have penned, which certainly are the, the most important thing, but we've all had that disappointing experience of picking up a copy of some great work and you open it up and it's, uh, you know, yellowed pages, you know, there's lines where the ink is half on and half off and, uh, you know, half a page is missing somewhere in the middle of the book.

So, uh, we've really poured a lot of time into ensuring that these are not only things that are worth engaging with on the idea level or on the prose level, but that they feel good when you pick them up, that they're easy to read, uh, you know, that it's a nice quality, heavy paper that feels, um, like, like I was saying earlier with electronic versions, they feel like they come and go.

Um, those cheap copies of books also make your brain say, well, is this really all that important if it's just this cheap copy? Uh, that's really true. So, and then, uh, again, one of the most important things is that we've, uh, we've tried to make the content as accessible as possible and for our students to have great success or students or parents to read these books, because some of them do have things that are foreign or unfamiliar to us, uh, you know, names of things long ago or foreign words or words that have fallen out of regular usage.

And so, um, Stephanie Meter, uh, goes through and identifies things that would aid the reader. And we leave footnotes for people so that they don't have to go scrambling for their dictionary every time they don't know what a word means. Um, and we provide some introductory materials too, that help the reader to know maybe what they should be looking for or how best to approach the story that the author wrote.

Well, it sounds like Copper Lodge editions really are the books you want to keep. That's the edition that you want to keep that has all the helps and all the beauty that just makes you feel like you are preserving something valuable. I like that. And I know that with CCMM, we are constantly bringing out new titles.

So, um, Tim, tell us what the 2025 titles, what are the, what are the new titles coming out that our students will be using in community? So our four titles this year are Jane Eyre, which is a beautiful story. And, uh, we talked about earlier how, uh, books can be a great avenue for conversations, even with some of our older students and reading aloud and discussing Jane Eyre would be a great way to approach some very important topics that some of our students are, are entering into a phase of life where it's very vital that they be aware.

Well, and sometimes it, it, it gives you an easy way as a parent to talk about things that students may be wanting to talk about, but not, um, personally. I don't want this to be related to me personally, but I can talk about it in relation to a character in a book.

And that's a great way for parents and students to have some difficult conversations. Another conversation that is sometimes challenging is, um, a conversation about faith. Um, what, what do our children really believe and what's life really like once they leave the safe, safety of our homes. And so Pilgrim's Progress is one of our, our books this year.

Um, and then a little on the lighter side, we have Alice, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, uh, which is a delightful tale and full of lovely witty poetry and, uh, just, man, what a great book to read aloud with the whole family. Yeah. And then our last book for the year is A Tale of Two Cities by Jennifer's favorite author.

Yeah. Jennifer, I was going to ask you, which of the four is your favorite? And what if, if I told you, you couldn't pick Dickens, what would you pick? Oh, well, I would then pick Jane Eyre. All right. Because that was one of the, the first, you know, really long classics of English literature that I read as a child.

It is a big place in my heart. Um, I was also going to say that, you know, we need to have a, a bragging moment on some of classical conversations students. So not only do we have the lovely Stephanie, Stephanie Bailey meter helping us with footnoting these additions, but we also had these four that we just named the covers were designed by, um, challenge students.

And, um, so my daughter did the cover for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland when she was interning for us and added to our staff, one of our interns, Hannah Gilmer, who has actually been busily laying out these books and finding illustrations for them. And then we have another intern, Rachel Hiltz, who's been helping us to edit them.

So this really is a multi-generational effort to be keepers of the books. Isn't that the coolest thing? I absolutely love seeing challenge students grow up to be keepers of the books and to work shoulder to shoulder with these young people who, um, have such a great education and such a love for, for books is really inspiring and it's a lot of fun.

So Tim mentioned these four, and these are, are books that our students will use at home and in community within their challenge community. Um, Jennifer, there are Copper Lodge titles that parents of younger children might want to use specifically, um, in the fall as we are coming up in cycle two.

Tell us about those. Yeah, so we designed some of our younger readers to loosely correspond with the geography of each of our nation cycles. So coming up for cycle two, we have the literature storybook, um, old world echoes, which is full of fairy tales from Europe and, um, and some places in Asia as well.

So we call it the old world for a reason. And it corresponds with the cycle two foundations geography. As I said, the memory work that the students are doing. So we have 24 weeks of stories and poems for families to share together to go right along with our foundations here.

And then for, um, learning a little bit about the history of Rome, we have our book senators of Rome, which is so we, Rome's history comes in those three sweeping periods of Kings and the Senate and then on to emperors. And so that middle period senators of Rome is our reader for cycle two.

And then we have for reading wonderful science stories, um, we have, uh, our uncle Paul series and the one that goes with cycle two is exploring the oceans with uncle Paul. And although that is the title, we should say that uncle Paul is exploring these things with his niece and his nephews.

So that's another thing that makes it a wonderful homeschool read aloud. Yeah. Yes. Oh, and, and they are fun stories. We have done some of those, some read alouds from all three of those, um, old world echoes exploring the oceans and senators in Rome. We've done some read alouds, summer read alouds.

And, um, I have had feedback that students want to keep asking their parents, what comes next? What comes next? We need to get that book. So parents out there, you, you've heard it here. You know, what books, what Copper Lodge library books you need to look for that are new additions coming out that your challenge students will see in community.

And now Jennifer has told us which cycle two readers would be a great addition to your library for summer or fall read alouds at home, um, this coming year. Well, it's about time for us to end this episode. Is there any last word that you want to offer as a keeper of the book, Jennifer or Tim?

Just that I hope we've inspired our listeners to start to own some of their own books and to build their family library of whatever size. It doesn't have to be thousands of volumes, as long as you pick a few really good ones to own. And then I'm hoping to also hand those down to my children that we can all have that family heritage.

Yep. A heritage of reading. That's cool. Tim, what about you? One final plug to be a keeper of the book. Yeah. Read early, read often, and read widely. Oh, that is awesome advice. Okay, guys, you've gotten all the good advice. Go and build your library and enjoy reading along the way.

And I'll see you next week. Bye-bye. you you you you you you you you Thank you.