To start, we read a basic info book:
Then this one was interesting:
I knew some, but others were a fun surprise to learn about: like Christmas cards, staplers, matches, lawn mowers, and of course sandwiches. The book has a list of some of the famous English nursery rhymes. The girls liked that part; that Three Blind Mice, Humpty Dumpty, Jack and Jill, and others had been told to English children for five hundred years.
We read a couple versions of this story, the best is from this book:
It's a nice story about a boy who's fortune is increased by listening to church bells, and by having the sense to buy a cat. Dick Whittington really lived, 1358-1423. The afterword tells about the story, and says that "Now there are twelve bells in the steeple of Bow Church, each bell inscribed with words from the Psalms. The first letter of each of the quotations spells D-W-H-I-T-T-I-N-G-T-O-N." I really love that about England, tradition and great age seem to be very present.
We also read a couple versions of this:
The girls enjoyed it. I'd like to watch the old disney movie, here.
We read a Beauty and the Beast version from England that was very good:
The end papers have a sort of code of flowers and their meanings, which are worked in on each page of the story. We liked looking up the flowers to see what the characters were feeling.
This is an old Cornish version of the Rumplestiltskin story:
The language was great.
And a good old Tomie dePaola, which is not specifically from England, but it's medieval and cute and funny.
My girls also have become Harry Potter obsessed! And it does take place in the British Isles... Their piano teacher's kids were watching the movie for Prisoner of Azkaban, and Miss A really wanted to watch it. I told her she had to read the book first, and she did! We had recently listened to the first four books (as far as I want them to go until they're a little older...). Now Miss A has read 3, 1, and is halfway through 2. Miss M has read 1, 2, and most of 3. And I had to go buy three new movies. I love the books of course, and I'm so happy to have them reading all the time. Every time I say something like "Stop reading, and come and eat!" I get a happy thrill, and a memory of my own childhood, which was almost entirely spent reading.
