Summer Sorting

     Summertime is my favorite season of the year.  It's the time that I'm most relaxed, and tend to do most of my reflection on our "school" year.  I recently finished reading, The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child by Donalyn Miller.  Although written for classroom teachers, The Book Whisperer is still a resource many homeschoolers will find useful.  For me it was an affirmation that I am on the right path: no worksheets, no spelling tests, and no grammar exercises.  If you want your children to read and write well, let them read and write.

     Reading the book also caused me a short moment of panic.  Donalyn Miller requires her students to read 40 books from the following genres:

poetry anthologies 5
traditional literature 5
realistic fiction 5
historical fiction 2
fantasy 4
science fiction 2
mystery 2
informational 4
biography, autobiograpy, memoir 2
chapter book choices 9


We have all read more than 40 books this year (except Daddy :O)). It was the genre requirement that really started me thinking.  Am I encouraging the kids and providing them with enough different types of books?  This thinking lead me to a complete reorganization of our library.  We sorted all of the books into genres and labeled the shelves.  After two days our library is sorted and reorganized.  Suprisingly, our library is pretty well stocked with the different genres, except for science fiction.  We do not have a single science fiction book.  Anyone know of some good science fiction?