We have tried to use this book 2 years in a row. I literally have to sit and read it to my 11yo explaining everything along the way paragraph by paragraph or even sentence to sentence. It's just a dry, hard read for her. The book also seems at times to be somewhat biased.

I would like church history to be as exciting as everything else we're learning. This year I want to purchase an alternate text. Does anyone have any suggestions of church history books they have used in the past for their dialectic child?

Thanks,
Olivia

We had the same problem at the end of last year (Year One) since my D student loves history and doesn't complain much about reading things, I take any requests for some other book seriously.

I am looking at two books:

The 100 Most Important Events in Christian History by Curtis, Lang and Petersen.

The Story of Christianity by Collins and Price. This is a DK book of some sort.

These are both used by Sonlight. They also have an optional text called How to Read Church History by Comby. But the description makes it sound like too much for what we need.

I am reading another church history called The Story of Christianity (in two volumes) by Gonzalez. Although the second volume might work with a D student the first was probably two difficult.

Hi Olivia,

We are just about to begin year 1, and my oldest is 10, so we haven't done much official church history yet. However, my husband and I just finished reading Shelley's Church History in Plain Language. It is great! I definitely want our girls to read it in the coming years. TOG recommends it for Rhetoric level. . . and it is a lot to follow at times, but a good read.

A friend just highly recommended a series by Brandon and Mandy Withrow - it begins with the book titled Peril and Peace. Don't know all the other titles yet. I am just looking into it, but wanted to offer it as a suggestion anyway.

Interested in the thread, as we also have Kuiper's book on our shelf.

thanks,
wendy

Hi ladies,
Please also consider the possibility that an 11 year old may not be quite ready for dialectic work yet. It's so easy to forget that it isn't all about reading ability, and it is so easy (at least it was for me!) to want to send them to the next learning level when it's not quite time....after all, he/she is "advanced."

Hope this helps someone...

Thank you so much for your input!

I had been looking at Gonzalez's The Story of Christianity and Shelly's Church History in Plain Language, but could not determine which to get. Now I can make a much more informed decision.

Furthermore, I had not yet come across Peril and Peace from the Withrow's - which just looks like fun reading for anybody. So, what I'll probably end up doing is buying Shelly's book for school purposes and the Withrow's book to read for fun. Depending on how they read and how in depth they get, I may just alternate the reading assignments from both.

As a side note, I did consider that my child may not have been ready for this work. However, even in her most challenging lit. readings she did not struggle half as much as she did with this book. Having read it myself (to her) I have to say that as an adult, it was a tough read.

Just about every book tapestry has suggested has worked great for our family. This book has been the only exception (so far). I feel we gave it a great effort - 2 school years - and it just wasn't working.

Thanks so much for all your comments!

Olivia

quote:

Originally posted by Owallace:


As a side note, I did consider that my child may not have been ready for this work. However, even in her most challenging lit. readings she did not struggle half as much as she did with this book. Having read it myself (to her) I have to say that as an adult, it was a tough read.

Just about every book tapestry has suggested has worked great for our family. This book has been the only exception (so far). I feel we gave it a great effort - 2 school years - and it just wasn't working.

I wanted to note, I feel the same way as Olivia. I think maybe this book is a bit of a dud. The only other book we had a similar issue with was the one on Jewish holidays and customs used at the D level. I replaced that with "Why a Jew Celbrates" and things worked fine. That's why I'm comfortable replacing this book with something else.