"What they are reading at the kitchen table..."

Homeschoolers of different backgrounds and faiths are finding commonality in the books they read:

"When it comes to their history books, conservative home-schoolers hunger for tales of great men and are suspicious of books written in the era of political correctness. And liberals like old histories for their utopian, premodern feel, when nature had yet to be despoiled. These preferences reach a confluence in the works of two authors who are both smashingly successful with home-schoolers: Laura Ingalls Wilder and G.A. Henty.

Wilder, of course, wrote the seven "Little House on the Prairie" books, published from 1932 to 1943. Her true-life tales of traveling west with her family feature adventure, churchgoing, traditional gender roles and some insensitive encounters with Indians. But they also have strong female characters and a loving attention to the natural environment. And, best of all, they feature a world before today's bureaucratized society."

Interesting to know that homeschoolers from various backgrounds are reading some of the same materials, but for widely different reasons. Just goes to show the versatility of the written word!

Click here to read the OpinionJournal article