Why does Ambleside use books that are so challenging for most children?
Charlotte Mason wanted to put students in direct contact with the best minds of all time, so she had her students reading first hand from books written by great minds with great ideas. Retellings of these books will usually be inferior, watered down versions of the original. The strength of great literature is often in its detailed depiction of characters who come to life as we read and allow us to see a different world through their eyes and consider their moral dilemmas – this is the kind of reading that helps a child firm up his own convictions. When books are abridged, they are stripped of almost everything but the plot line, and the wonderful vividness of the characters is sacrificed. Children are at their prime stage of development to learn language – and what better vocabulary teacher is there than a well-written but challenging book? As Charlotte Mason found a hundred years ago, and Marva Collins found more recently, even children lacking the benefits of a good education will r
