What About Literature?

Who determines what your child should read? Our language materials do not dictate your choices in extracurricular reading as some curricula do. We believe that the parents should make these choices for their child. We do believe that your children should do considerable reading to develop literary skills. However, we feel that it is vital to choose properly here. The effect of reading choices on the mental and spiritual attitudes of a young person will probably be one hundredfold the effect of any textbook. Textbooks simply teach mechanics. Reading selections teach (ever so subtly) the philosophies of the author. The minds of young people are in their formative stages. Mistakes here are costly, even if their effects do not show up for years.

Some people recommend classics. But these are the classics of the world, containing all the philosophies of the world. Whose philosophies do we want our children to adopt? We have a number of reviews on our web site of classic authors, their work, and what they believed, often in their own words. We will continue to add others so that folks can have a clearer idea of what their children are getting from these sources.

We feel that it is unnecessary to seek out unbelievers either for literary example or for spiritual and philosophical enlightenment, especially for our children. There is superior food for the mind available. If we are what we eat, then what do we want to feed to our children's minds? We believe in giving children plenty to read. We think it should be wholesome and delightful. What do we look for? See the "How Do We Pick?" section in this catalog for our basic guidelines. At least one person on our staff reads every selection that we consider carrying. Most of those never make the cut, because if we would not sell it to Jesus, we will not sell it to you.

We also believe that the reading material should be more than entertainment. It should be edifying (mentally and spiritually) to the reader?especially a young reader. We trust that you will find our sizeable selection of reading offerings will meet those criteria.