Books
Favorite Books & Documentaries 2020

Favorite Books & Documentaries 2020

Each morning I sit down with my children for a ritual we call Morning Time. It involves singing a hymn, memorizing scripture and lots of reading. We read from a collection of books each day, enjoying learning together from books on a broad range of topics.

Morning Time makes up the backbone of our homeschool. We have read so many excellent books over the years that have shaped our family culture. We almost always have a book going in each of these categories: Spiritual, Poetry, Fairytales, History (including biographies, historical fiction, and histories) and “Just for Fun”.

Over the years I’ve shared a lot of book recommendations here. I’ve reviewed the books I read personally, as well as those we read in our homeschool. I love looking back at this way of recording our lives. In an effort to simplify that process, and have a one-stop place for you to refer to, I’ve decided to create one blog post this year to house our very favorites of all the things we read and watch this year.


This will be a living blog post; I’ll add to it every time we come across a book we love or watch a fantastic documentary. You’ll want to bookmark this somehow so you can come back often to see what I’ve added.

We read a LOT of books around here, and I have very strong opinions about the kinds of books we spend our time on. I don’t avoid hard topics or sad stories, but I do believe they should be well-written and inspiring.

Do not underestimate the power of a picture book! A really great picture book is a treasure. They are full of gorgeous illustrations, carefully chosen words , and information shared in an engaging way. Picture books are my go-to resource for biographies, even for high schoolers!

I will only add books we have read and LOVED to this list. Anything you find here will have earned at least four out of five stars. This is a compilation of the very best things we’ve read together and separately this year.

I’ve divided the books into different categories so they are easier to find: picture books, biographies & history, science, chapter books, audiobooks, poetry, and books for Mama.

Check back often to see what’s new!

Biographies and History

Karl, Get out of the Garden!: Carolus Linnaeus and the Naming of Everything by Anita Sanchez

Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World’s Most Famous Bear

El Chino by Allen Say

The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus

Martin de Porres: The Rose in the Desert by Gary D. Schmidt

Wings for Per by the D’Aulaires

Historical Fiction

Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan

The Boy Who Held Back the Sea by Thomas Locker

Chapter Books/ Fiction

The Wild Robot by Peter Brown

Audiobooks

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Poetry

You Come Too by Robert Frost

Books for Mama

Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis

Finding Dorothy by Elizabeth Letts

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption Paperback by Bryan Stevenson

The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom

Dinner: A Love Story by Jenny Rosenstrach

1 thought on “Favorite Books & Documentaries 2020

Comments are closed.