
How do you know you have a living book in your hands?
You are reading a book to your children, 8 and 11 years old, and they narrate back to you. You decide that reading a chapter and letting them take turns to narrate would be fine on a given day. The book has 16 chapters. You started it with about 3 weeks to go to the end of term, so a chapter a day for 4 days in a schooling week means there would be some chapters left by end of term. You reckon, perhaps we will finish it during the holiday? But will the children want to do narration during the holiday?
Then along the way, you read a chapter, and the children are left wanting more. You re-jigger things, and you read 2 chapters in a day; read one chapter and the 8 year old orally narrates, then read the next chapter and the 11 year old alternates oral and written narrations. It's Thursday; you have just finished chapter 13 &14 and the children ask, "Can we read chapter 15 and 16 tomorrow?" But then tomorrow is Friday, and Friday is all day at the Homeschool Club, the last day of the term.
They then suggest, "Let's finish it on Saturday." And you remind them it's sports day; maybe on Sunday after church. One thing is for sure, this thing can't wait for Monday! You come back from the club on Friday, and they attempt to "read Musa". You are so tired and somehow they get busy with some of the 20 books you got from HSC Library and the "Let's read Musa" request quietly dies down.
Then tomorrow, you are out of the house at 6:20am to get to the Homeschool Sports Day early . . . you do the activities there. You drive home at the end of the day, and you are quite exhausted, and the last thing on your mind is reading, and a human comes towering over you, with a book in hand: " Let's read Musa". You say, "OK, let's get this out of the way." You read chapter 15, the8 year old narrates, and then read chapter 16, the final chapter, and the 11 year old narrates. A first at our house to have any kind of school lesson on a Saturday! What a book! That's what a living book does.
Exactly 30 years ago, in Form 1, I read Crossing the Boundary Fence by Patricia Charter. Back then, there were only a few copies and the teacher would read aloud during class time. If you didn't go to school, you would miss the reading, and good luck getting a copy of that book in your hands to catch up.
Our first term of 2024 was very well structured. I intended to dip my feet some more into Charlotte Mason's principles. My first test of her principles is well documented on the Homeschooling in Zimbabwe platform—I had a chance encounter with narration in a book called Know and Tell, The Art of Narration by Karen Glass . Narration has been a game changer for us in our reading.
Over time, I read more of Charlotte Mason—in particular, her book, Home Education. It was a very difficult and dense read, I must say! I then attended the Schole Sisters seminar hosted by Angelique Knaup in November last year—that seminar, gave me the energy to read more and finish up Home Education, and you bet I was so inspired by the ideas. I then spent a great amount of time on Ambleside Online—I never thought I would read a FAQ document that is 27 pages long, but yeah, one needs to do that to "get it." The book lists there are quite intimidating at first, but I thought to myself, I don't necessarily need that particular book, as long as I can get my hands on a reasonably good book.
At the beginning of the term, we looked through our shelves. My oldest daughter found Anne of Avonlea by L.M Montgomery, and the younger one found The Chronicles of Narnia, The Horse and the Boy by C.S. Lewis. We dutifully narrated these two; the 11 year old read by herself, and she would alternate narrating orally and writing. I read aloud to the 8 year old, and she would orally narrate. They finished their books with about 3 weeks to end the term.

Sometime during the term, I had decided that I wanted them to learn some Zimbabwean history. I dug deep, and travelled to 30 years ago, and Crossing the Boundary Fence sounded like the perfect book for that. I searched high and low for the book. It's now out of print. There is nothing online. And by chance when I went to Mbare bus terminus one day, I asked a guy who sells books if he had the book. He said, "Wait here and I'll go and look". But he returned with nothing. On another visit again, I went to the same guy, and he again said, "Wait here and I'll go and look," and lo and behold, he had the book—albeit a photocopied version of it—and for US$5, the book was mine!
The book has lived up to its initial perfection. The children couldn't wait to hear the story. They looked forward to it. They could not wait for Monday to finish up the book. I had to remind them several times that they should not interrupt me when I'm reading; they must write their questions down and ask them at the end of the reading. They had too many questions; thought-provoking questions. And on that Saturday evening when I read the last 2 chapters, my oldest commented, "We should read more books like that." And the 8 year old could write a whole another book on what happened to all the characters. It left them wanting more, it left them full of imagination of how the story could be expanded! The true definition of a living book.
This book screamed Zimbabwean history without announcing it was a history book. How do you teach children born 30+ years after independence without boring them with some random, winding details and facts? You read them this book, you take them to the National Heroes Acre while in the middle of reading this book, you have them ask thought-provoking questions. And in the process, you analyse the situation yourself too, and you look back and wonder, and ponder, and you get to an aha! moment, where you feel that as a nation, we are still in the process of crossing the boundary fence!
My challenge now is to find some more books like it. I dig deeper and I think of Matigari (again done in High School at Form 4). If you have any suggestions, please flood my inbox. I need to inspire these living souls with some good books!
If you read this far, perhaps I could one day write a living book? Thank you for giving me your attention!
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