The Teenage Liberation Handbook & Middle Grade Novels

Summer’s not over for another two months and I’m not rushing it. I still have summer plans~loads of them~and I intend to keep them. If summer’s your thing, I hope you do, too.

But somehow, college tuition bills for fall semester are due. My friends and family down South tell me they’re preparing to send their kids back to school next week. So here we all are buying backpacks and new shoes, glue sticks and pencils. And if we’re lucky, we’re reading good books with our kiddos and for ourselves along the way.

I’m still not quite ready to talk about my family’s big change just yet. (I’ll get there soon, I promise.) But what I am ready to tell you is that part of that change requires a return to high school homeschooling, which has all of us pretty excited.

It’s been two years since our “I don’t want to homeschool anymore” conversation.

We went into public school whole hog.

Then, 12 months later, I heard these words again and again, “Could we do half-homeschool? I really wish I could spend more time reading, writing, and working on my art.”

Since then, we’ve been hybrid homeschoolers.

We’ve loved it.

Hybrid homeschooling been exactly the balance my guy has needed.

But it’s made us somewhat of an odd-ball family (something we’re totally used to by now). So when we first started talking as a family about our upcoming big change, we were already having conversations about dual enrollment at home, early college entry, and college-without-high-school homeschooling. And now, we’re all in.

We’re excited.

We’re really excited.

We’re also feeling pretty confident because we’ve done this before.

We know from experience how much some colleges love homeschoolers.

We already know how fun college admissions and scholarship conversations can be with a homeschool transcript. And we’re so, so grateful for that.

But that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Any time a person goes off-script from societal norms, it can feel scary, wrong, like you’re doing something you’re not supposed to do because no one else is doing it exactly the way you are. Which is why I’m so extremely grateful for these three books ⤵

These books aren’t new to me. I’ve read them before.

I’m reading them again — I need the reminders they bring.

Last Child in the Woods is reminding me how much healing, growing, and learning happens when kids of all ages have time to play in the woods (including adults, parents, grandparents, all of us). It’s teaching me how “environment-based education dramatically improves standardized test scores and grade-point averages and develops skills in problem solving, critical thinking, and decision making. . . and childhood experiences in nature stimulate creativity.” (Quote from bookshop.org review)

The Teenage Liberation Handbook is reminding me that my little family is not alone — there are literally thousands of kids who don’t fit neatly into the boxes of institutional learning and education, and there’s another path for them from Self-directed Education into college, career, entrepreneurship, working as artists, whatever they were put on this planet to be and do.

Why Are You Still Sending Your Kids to School? is reminding me to focus on and helping my kiddo lean into his strengths instead of his weaknesses. “For some kids, school offers a positive and engaging experience. For others, it's a boring, stressful, and frustrating waste of time. If your child is in the second category, why keep tormenting them? Instead, why not help them find an educational environment where they feel genuinely motivated, excited, and empowered?” (Quote from bookshop.org review)

These books are also reminding me how valuable it is for all of us, especially our kids, to read for FUN. And that conversation brings me to sharing this —

The absolute BEST middle grade novelist I’ve ever encountered, Stuart Gibbs ⤵

Stuart Gibbs’ Funjungle series got my boys into reading for fun when they were 10 and 12, at risk of losing interest in reading.

Stuart Gibbs’ Space Case series got my family through thousands and thousands of miles driving cross-country during our Airstream full-time traveling days.

Stuart Gibbs’ Spy School series has kept us hooked all these years and continues to be something our whole family enjoys (even Dad).

Even now that my guys are 16 & 19, when a new Stuart Gibbs book hits the shelves, we buy the print and the audio versions, read them, and then talk about them from time to time. Which I’ll admit, might sound weird to folks who aren’t familiar with newer middle grade novels and don’t yet know why adults should read the middle grade novel genre.

These are good.

Really good.

I hope you find something in here that tickles your interest. If you try them, drop me a line and let me know.

Happy reading! (& summering)

Celeste☀️