Book Lists: Bane or Blessing

As a librarian who is also a homeschooling mama, I am often asked by prospective patrons if I have the books listed on various homeschool curricula book lists.  I remember as a new homeschooler 18 years ago trying to find a curriculum that utilized real, living books.  After we finished our time with Five in a Row, we definitely did not want to settle for dry facts common in the textbooks listed in most homeschool catalogs and marketed at homeschool conventions.  I found only one such curriculum at the time.  We plunged in, enjoying the books we could locate on that list, substituting books we could not find or...gasp...leaving them out altogether.  It really never occured to me that my child's education would somehow be ruined if I did not have the exact book recommended on a particular list.

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