Original Ambleside Online Book List assembled by Patty Mortimer
Since books for suggested additional reading can be read at any time in the year and at any pace, it is recommended that those be borrowed from the library when possible rather than purchased. A year-by-year recommended purchase list is at the end of this alphabetical list for those trying to buy as few items as possible by making use of online resources and library books.
Aesop: Aesop's Fables (year 1) online; version illustrated by Milo Winter is recommended
Alcott, Louis May: Little Men (year 6, suggested additional reading) online
Alcott, Louisa May: Little Women (year 5, suggested additional reading) online
Atwater, Richard: Mr. Popper's Penguins (year 2, suggested additional reading, check library)
Bachman, Frank and Mcugh The Story of Inventions (year 3, science)
Barrie, James M.: Peter Pan (year 1, suggested additional reading) online
Baum, Frank: Wonderful Wizard of Oz (year 3, suggested additional reading) online
Bendick, Jeanne: Archimedes and the Door of Science (6)
Brink, Carol Ryrie: Caddie Woodlawn (year 3)
Buckley, Arabella: Fairy-Land of Science (year 5) online
Bulfinch, Thomas: Age of Fables (year 4) online
Bunyan, John: Pilgrim's Progress (year 2,3) online
Burnett, Frances Hodgson: Little Lord Fauntleroy (year 3, suggested additional reading) online
Burnett, Frances Hodgson: A Little Princess (year 3, suggested additional reading) online
Burnett, Frances Hodgson: The Secret Garden (year 4, suggested additional reading) online
Burnford, Sheila: Incredible Journey (year 4)
Carroll, Lewis: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (year 3, suggested additional reading) online
Carroll, Lewis: Through the Looking Glass (year 3, suggested additional reading) online
Carson, Rachel: The Sea Around Us (year 6)
Collodi, Carlo: Pinocchio (year 1, suggested additional reading) online
Comstock, Anna Botsford: Handbook of Nature Study (year 1,2,3,4,5,6) required purchase
Cwiklik, Robert: Albert Einstein and Theory of Relativity (year 6)
D'Aulaire, Ingri and Edgar: Abraham Lincoln (year 3)
D'Aulaire, Ingri and Edgar: Benjamin Franklin (year 2)
D'Aulaire, Ingri and Edgar: Buffalo Bill (year 3)
D'Aulaire, Ingri and Edgar: George Washington (year 2)
D'Aulaire,: Ingri and Edgar Pocahontas (year 1)
D'Aulaire, Ingri and Edgar Columbus (year 1)
D'Aulaire, Ingri and Edgar: Lief the Lucky (year 1)
Dalgiesh, Alice: Courage of Sarah Noble (year 2)
Defoe, Daniel: Robinson Crusoe (year 4) online
Dickens, Charles: Child's History of England (year 4,5,6) online
Dickens, Charles: A Christmas Carol (year 5, suggested additional reading) online
Dickens, Charles: Cricket on the Hearth (year 6, suggested additional reading) online
Dickens, Charles: Oliver Twist (year 5) online
Dodge, Mary Mapes: Hans Brinker (year 5) online
Edmonds, Walter: Matchlock Gun (year 2)
Enright, Elizabeth: The Four Story Mistake (year 3, suggested additional reading, check library)
Enright, Elizabeth: Gone Away Lake (year 4, suggested additional reading, check library)
Enright, Elizabeth: Return to Gone Away Lake (year 4, suggested additional reading)
Enright, Elizabeth: The Saturdays (year 3, suggested additional reading, check library)
Enright, Elizabeth: Then There Were Five (year 3, suggested additional reading, check library)
Enright, Elizabeth: Thimble Summer (year 4, suggested additional reading, check library)
Fisher, Dorothy Canfield: Understood Betsy (year 2) online
Fleisher, Paul: Secrets of the Universe (year 6)
Forbes, Esther: Johnny Tremain (year 6, suggested additional reading)
Foster, Genevieve: Augustus Caesar's World (year 4)
Friedhoffer, Robert: Physics Lab in the Home (year 4)
Friedhoffer, Robert: Physics Lab in a Housewares Store (year 5)
Friedhoffer, Robert: Science Lab in a Supermarket (year 3)
Gatty, Margaret: Parables from Nature (year 1) online
Foster, Genevieve: World of Columbus and Sons (year 4)
Gipson, Fred: Old Yeller (year 4)
Grahame, Kenneth: The Wind in the Willows (year 2) online
Hale, Lucretia: Complete Peterkin Papers (year 4, suggested additional reading) online
Hawthorne, Nathaniel: Tanglewood Tales (year 2) online
Hawthorne, Nathaniel: A Wonder Book (year 5, suggested additional reading) online
Henry, O.: The Gift of the Magi (year 4, suggested additional reading) online
Herriot, James: James Herriot's Treasury for Children (year 1)
Heyerdahl, Thor: Kon Tiki (year 4)
Hillyer, V. M.: Child's History of the World (year 1,2) recommended purchase
Hodges, Margaret: St. George and the Dragon (year 1, suggested additional reading, borrow from library if possible)
Holling, Holling C.: Minn of the Mississippi (year 3)
Holling, Holling C: Paddle to the Sea . (year 1)
Holling, Holling C: Pagoo: . (year 2)
Holling, Holling C: Seabird . (year 1)
Holling, Holling C: Tree in the Trail . (year 1)
Keller, Helen: Story of My Life (year 5)
Kingsley, Charles: Heroes (year 3) online
Kingsley, Charles: Madam How and Lady Why (year 4) online
Kingsley, Charles: Water Babies (year 3) online
Kingsley, Charles: Westward Ho! (year 6) online
Kipling, Rudyard: Captains Courageous (year 5, suggested additional reading) online
Kipling, Rudyard: The Jungle Book (year 3) online
Kipling, Rudyard: Just So Stories (year 1) online
Kipling, Rudyard: Kim (year 6, suggested additional reading) online?
Kipling, Rudyard: Puck of Pook's Hill (year 5) online
Knight, Eric: Lassie Come Home (year 4, suggested additional reading, check library)
Lamb, Charles and Mary: Tales from Shakespeare (year 3) online
Lang, Andrew: Blue Fairy Book (year 1) online
Lang, Andrew: Green Fairy Book (year 2, suggested additional reading) online
Lang, Andrew: Pink Fairy Book (year 3, suggested additional reading) online
Lang, Andrew: Red Fairy Book (year 1, suggested additional reading) online
Lang, Andrew: Yellow Fairy Book (year 2, suggested additional reading) online
Lewis, C.S.: The Chronicle's of Narnia. (year 4, suggested additional reading, check library)
Livingstone, David: Missionary Travels (year 6) online
Lofting: Story of Doctor Dolittle (year 2, suggested additional reading) online
London, Jack: Call of the Wild (year 6) online
Long, William J.: Little Brother of the Bear (year 6, suggested additional reading) online
Long, William J.: School of the Woods (year 5, suggested additional reading)
Long, William J.: Secrets of the Woods (year 3) online
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth Paul Revere's Ride (year 2) online
Ludwig, Charles: Michael Faraday, Father of Electronics (year 6)
MacDonald, George: At the Back of the North Wind (year 3) online
Marryatt, F. Children of the New Forest (year 6)
Marshall, H.E.: This Country of Ours (year 1,2,3) online
Matthews, Tom L.: Always Inventing (year 6)
McHugh, Michael J. Christian Liberty Nature Reader #5 (year 5)
McHugh, Michael J. and Bachman, Frank Story of Inventions (year 3)
McPherson, Stephanie: Ordinary Genius (year 6)
Milne, A.A.: Now We Are Six (year 1)
Montgomery, Lucy Maud: Anne of Green Gables (year 5, suggested additional reading) online
Morey, Walt: Gentle Ben (year 4, suggested additional reading, check library)
Nesbit, E.: Five Children and It (year 2, suggested additional reading) online
Nesbit, E.: The Railway Children (year 4, suggested additional reading) online
Nesbit, E.: The Treasure Seekers (year 6, suggested additional reading) online
Nesbit, E.: The Wouldbegoods (year 6, suggested additional reading) online
Nesbit, Edith: Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare (year 1,2) online
Norton, Mary: The Borrowers (year 4, suggested additional reading, check library)
Opie, Iona and Peter: Oxford Book of Children's Verse (year 1) or use online Ambleside anthology
Plutarch: : Plutarch Lives (year 4) online
Polo, Marco: Travels of Marco Polo (year 5) many versions available
Porter, Eleanor: Pollyanna (year 4, suggested additional reading) online
Pyle, Howard: Merry Adventures of Robin Hood (year 4) online
Pyle, Howard: Otto of the Silver Hand (year 5, suggested additional reading) online
Pyle, Howard: Story of King Arthur and His Knights (year 4) online
Rawls, Wilson: Where the Red Fern Grows (year 6, suggested additional reading, check library)
Richards, Lawrence: It Couldn't Just Happen (year 4)
Rosen, Sidney: Galileo and the Magic Numbers (year 6) out of print
Ruskin, John: King of the Golden River (year 1, suggested additional reading) online
Salten, Felix: Bambi (year 3)
Scott, Sir Walter: Rob Roy (year 6) online
Seton, Ernest Thompson: Wild Animals I Have Known (year 5) online
Sewell, Anna: Black Beauty (year 3, suggested additional reading) online
Sidney, Margaret: Five Little Peppers (year 2, suggested additional reading) online
Spyri, Johanna: Heidi (year 2, suggested additional reading) online
Stevenson, Robert Louis: The Black Arrow (year 5) online
Stevenson, Robert Louis: Child's Garden of Verses (year 1) recommended purchase (child-friendly illustrations, not Thomas Kinkade)
Stevenson, Robert Louis: Kidnapped (year 6, suggested additional reading) online
Stevenson, Robert Louis: Treasure Island (year 5, suggested additional reading) online
Stoutenburg, Adrien: American Tall Tales (year 3)
Tarkington, Booth: Penrod (year 6) online
Terhune, Albert: Lad: A Dog (year 5, suggested additional reading)
Tolkien, J.R.R.: The Hobbit (year 6, suggested additional reading, check library)
Travers, P. L.: Mary Poppins (year 2, suggested additional reading, check library)
Twain, Mark: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (year 6, suggested additional reading) online
Twain, Mark: Adventures of Tom Sawyer (year 5, suggested additional reading) online
Twain, Mark: The Prince and the Pauper (year 6) online
Van Loon, Hendrick: Story of Mankind (year 5,6) online
Various translators: Beowulf (year 4) original online, modern versions may be helpful
Various Translators: The Iliad (year 5) original online, modern versions may be helpful
Verne, Jules: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (year 5) online
White, E. B: Charlotte's Web (year 1, suggested additional reading, check library)
Wiggin, Kate Douglas: Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (year 5, suggested additional reading) online
Wilder, Laura Ingalls: By the Shores of Silver lake (year 4, suggested additional reading)
Wilder, Laura Ingalls: Farmer Boy (year 2, suggested additional reading)
Wilder, Laura Ingalls: The First Four Years (year 6, suggested additional reading)
Wilder, Laura Ingalls: Little House in the Big Woods (year 1, suggested additional reading)
Wilder, Laura Ingalls: Little House on the Prairie (year 2, suggested additional reading)
Wilder, Laura Ingalls: Little Town on the Prairie (year 5, suggested additional reading)
Wilder, Laura Ingalls: The Long Winter (year 5, suggested additional reading)
Wilder, Laura Ingalls: On the Banks of Plum Creek (year 3, suggested additional reading)
Wilder, Laura Ingalls: These Happy Golden Years (year 6, suggested additional reading)
Williams, Margery: Velveteen Rabbit (year 1, suggested additional reading) online
Wyss, Johann: Swiss Family Robinson (year 6) online
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For those on a strict budget, recommended purchases are:
Year 0 (pre-school)
Since Charlotte Mason didn't think that young children needed lots of books but were better off playing outside, very few book purchases are really necessary. Nice to have:
Beatrix Potter books (children really like the miniature versions)
AA Milne's classics: Winnie the Pooh, House on Pooh Corner, When We Were Very Young, Now we are Six
A classicly illustrated version of Mother Goose
a well-illustrated (not by Thomas Kinkaid) version of A Child's Garden of Verses
Hans Christian Andersen tales with classic illustrations
classicly illustrated books of standard poetry including The Pied Piper of Hamlin
Picture books such as:
The Little House and Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton
The Little Engine that Could by Watty Piper with the original illustrations
Ferdinand by Munro Leaf
Ping by Marjorie Flack
Blueberries for sal by Robert McCloskey
The Biggest Bear by Lynd Ward
Year 1
Hillyer's Child's History of the World (to be used for 3 years)
Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock (to be used for 6 years)
a Math program
Books by Holling C Holling that your library does not have
D'Aulaire books if your library does not have them (Columbus, Lief the Lucky, Pocahontas)
childrens picture books by James Herriot if your library doesn't have them
Aesop's Fables illustrated by Milo Winter, paperback, is nice to have
a phonics program
a well-illustrated (not by Thomas Kinkade) version of A Child's Garden of Verses is good to own
Laura Ingalls Wilder books if your library does not have them
Other books can be read online or borrowed from the library.
Year 2
Hillyer's Child's History of the World (to be used for 3 years)
Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock (to be used for 6 years)
a Math program
a phonics program if necessary
Pagoo by Holling C Holling if your library does not have it
D'Aulaire books if your library does not have them (Ben Franklin, G Washington)
Laura Ingalls Wilder books if your library does not have them
Other books can be read online or borrowed from the library.
Year 3
Hillyer's Child's History of the World (to be used for 3 years)
Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock (to be used for 6 years)
a Math program
a phonics program if necessary
Minn of the Mississippi if your library doesn't have it
Friedhoffer's Science Lab in a Supermarket
Christian Liberty press's Story of Inventions
American Tall Tales by Adrien Stoutenberg, unless your library has a copy of tall tales
Bambi by Felix Salten if your library doesn't have it
D'Aulaire books if your library doesn't have them (Lincoln, Buffalo Bill)
Laura Ingalls Wilder books if your library does not have them
Elizabeth Enright books are nice if you can find them cheap (but not worth high collector prices)
Other books can be read online or borrowed from the library.
Year 4
Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock (to be used for all 6 years)
a math program
Genevieve Foster books are nice if you can afford them, but not necessary. Check library
Kon Tiki by Thor Heyerdal the child's version is good to have, check the library first
It Couldn't Just Happen by Lawrence Richards
Physics Lab in the Home by Friedhoffer
a Latin/foreign language program
The Incredible Jouney by Sheila Burnford if your library doesn't have it
Lassie Come Home by Eric Knight if your library doesn't have it
Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis if your library doesn't have them
Elizabeth Enright books are nice if you can find them cheap (but not worth high collector prices)
Other books can be read online or borrowed from the library.
Year 5
Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock (to be used for all 6 years)
a math program
a version of Marco Polo if your library doesn't have it
Always Inventing by Tom Matthews
Christian Liberty Nature Reader grade 5
Physics Lab in a Houswares Store by Friedhoffer
a Latin/foreign language program
The Iliad - a modern version may be helpful; your library may have a copy
Laura Ingalls Wilder books if your library doesn't have them
Other books can be read online or borrowed from the library.
Year 6
Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock (to be used for all 6 years)
a math program
Secrets of the Universe by Paul Fleisher is an excellent science book and worth finding
The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson if your library doesn't have it
Archimedes and the Door of Science by Jeanne Bendick if your library doesn't have it
Galileo and the Magic Numbers by Sidney Rosen if your library doesn't have it
biography-type books about Michael Faraday, Albert Einstein, etc
a Latin/foreign language program
Children of the New Forest by Marryat if your library doesn't have it
Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes if your library doesn't have it
The Hobbit by Tolkein if your library doesn't have it
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There are some wonderfully illustrated versions of children's poems out there to choose from. Children enjoy seeing pictures of children like themselves. While Thomas Kinkade's paintings enjoy popularity with many people, they aren't really geared for children; they're charming, idyllic scenes that appeal more to adults who may be drawn to peaceful scenes of country tranquility. Since there are so many alternatives that would be better suited to children, the concern was that Kinkade's current fame might cause a parent to choose the version with his pictures based on the fame of a name alone rather than with a child's eye.
My favorite versions are illustrated by Eulalie and Jessie Wilcox Smith. Children dressed as real children were in Robert Louis Stevenson's day helps to set the poems in their correct time context and may help a child form a perspective that children who lived a long ago were a lot like they are today, which I believe gives a better idea of our place in the world; ie, people who lived before were just as real as people who live today. It would be a shame for children to miss seeing pictures of children alongside these poems about children.
One that I especially recommend:
"A Child's Garden of Verses - a classic illustrated edition conceived and collected by Cooper Edens"
ISBN 0877016089 Chronicle Books San Francisco
http://www.chroniclebooks.com/Chronicle/servlet/at/load-kids and search for Stevenson
