Books - GA Henty for elementary vs. high school

[cbollin]

We are doing CTG. We love to do read alouds and usually read some that are recommended in the library recommendations. We have read the Golden Goblet as a read aloud and loved it. Now we have started The Cat of Bubastes. My question is: Who else has read this book? We have loved every book we have read but neither my kids or I are getting into this very much. We can only read a small amount at a time. There is a lot of description in it. I have mixed feelings about plugging along with it. I usually stop every paragraph or so and say, "do you understand what he is describing?" and I usually get, a NO.

Have any of you read it. Does it get a little more "exciting". Did you find it well worth the effort. We are a third of the way through right now.

What do you think? I have girls ages 9 and 8.
Connie

well, I haven't read it but....

You have a 8 and 9 y.o.
This book is used in MFW's High school year 1 program
I noticed in my copy of CTG manual, it lists this book as grade 6 and higher.
It's not really a hit in your house.

Therefore........ I vote put it aside and consider it "book basket" style of not having to finish it. (good book for much later, just consider it a preview this year for way down the road.)

If you need a different read aloud for a few weeks, (other than the ones in deluxe) Consider doing a non-history related read aloud for fun?? (there are ideas in the very back of the CTG manual of general reading. maybe there is a book on that list that might be more fun.)

-crystal

[MJP]

Henty's books do tend to start out slowly. This was a comment from both of my boys even though they do enjoy his books. My boys both read this book on their own while doing Creation to the Greeks, but they would have been 10 and 12. I would not have tried it with my youngers.

[Julie in MN]

My son & I tried to read a Henty book for probably 6 months & never finished. It was about Spain in South America. I agree that Henty spends tons of time describing the surroundings. Maybe he researched the accurate details & wants to use all his research, but we just couldn't get excited about it all. And his sentences were so long that I often had to start over because I had emphasized the wrong thing or something. Some sentences were half a page long. If I try it again, I'm going to get the audio version. Someone told me those are well done...? I would think the person would have at least studied the sentences in advance :o)

But I agree with the others that it's okay to stop a book after you've all given it the old college try.

[caod]

Thank you for your thoughts. I think we will put it down. We have often read books that are above their reading level and have enjoyed every one of them, until this one. It seems to work when it is read aloud. I think we could cope with the confusing language if the story line would get a little more exciting. I just wondered if it would soon get exciting and the boring part would be over or was the whole book going to be this way.

Anyway, I think I hear that this is typical of a Henty book. We actually read Shakespear this past summer and they LOVED it, they begged for more. But this hasn't done that to us. Thank you for telling me your experiences. If anyone else has something to add, feel free.

Connie

[KimberlyND]

We read alot of the Henty books with our older three. Most we read as read-a-louds with me doing the reading. But our 3 were older than your dds. And it was our oldest ds who liked them best. My opinion is they are more suited to older boys although our older daughter did like them, too. I won't get our books back out until ds is at least 13. But I do plan to read them again as we learned so much from them.

[mamaofredheads]

My boys LOVE the Henty books on CD. Jim Weiss does many of them in an abridged form that is more appropriate for younger ones. Jim Hodges does the unabridged versions. We have some of both. We are blessed to have both of these men at our book fairs in the Dallas area. I make a list of all the Henty books or Jim Weiss CDs listed in my MFW book basket list and pick up some of them at the book fairs.

Jim Weiss is at greathall dot com

Jim Hodges is at jimhodgesaudiobooks dot com
If you sign up for his e-mails, he has specials quite often.

These are all well loved. I think it's a great way to do Henty without having to read Henty. :) Our 11 yo ds has requested Henty CDs for Christmas. I'm looking around for a sale on the ones he wants.

Glenna

[cbollin]

check the library too. They might have it listed on a book on CD. Ours does anyway. (In fact, our library has quite few of Jim Weiss's audios)

-crystal

[Michele in WA]

We LOVED Cat of Bubastes!!!!

Michele

[lyntley]

I fell asleep during the audio version but my 10 YO DD is enjoying it.

[JoyfulDancer]

We haven't gotten to it yet, but I purchased a coloring book that goes with it. I'm going to try having them color as I read it. I tried to read it myself while nursing the baby at night, but it put me right to sleep. :) After reading all these comments, I'm thinking this may be one we wait on.

[Lucy]

Dear Connie and All,

This was a hard read for my daughter in the high school program, Ancient History and Literature, last year. I think it is included for the great detail it gives into daily Egyptian life. So, do not feel to badly if your crew is not jumping for joy over it. I agree with the others that setting it aside is fine.

A friend of mine has an older manual and it recommends this book in CTG as a read aloud for younger kids and as a reading book for 6+. In the newer manual I have it is not recommended for read aloud. So may be you have an older manual. Just thought it was worth mentioning.

Lucy

[gressman9]

BTW....I talked to Jim Weiss's wife at a convention and she said that the audios are slightly abridged....but in a good way. He cuts out parts of the lengthy descriptions. My 14 yr old just read this in the highschool program. She said it was WAAYAYYY too descriptive but the story line was excellent.

Carylee
mom2seven