At the end of our school year this year, I did a thing. I decided to make a book stack of all of the chapter books we had read in the past 12 months, from July 2024 to June 2025. Ta-da! Our living books stack!
I actually wish I had gotten a picture with the stack on the left. It’s about as tall as I am, and that was the stack of read-alouds and audiobooks! (We like to use the library’s Libby app for audiobooks.)
Being the crazy-about-books person that I am, I re-checked out all the chapter books from the library. This took some time since the library only lets me put 30 books on hold at a time, but I have two library cards. I decided not to do a stack of picture books because that would have been hundreds of more books that I’d have to check out!
I broke the large book stacks down (not literally, they didn’t fall over!) into categories, just for you! Here is a short gallery of a few of the partial book stacks. I know the spines might be hard to read, so click into each post below for lists and links!
Book Stack about Ancient Greece 
Book Stack about King Arthur and Merlin 
Book stack about Vikings, early middle ages 
Books about poetry and poems that we read 
Book stack of books about Ancient Rome 
Books about Northern and Central Africa 
Book Stack books set in the United States 
Book Stack Pre-Columbian Cultures 
Book Stack, books about Medieval Europe 
Book Stack, books about Medieval Asia
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History: Living Books Stack
- Ancient Greece (July 2024)
- Ancient Rome (Sept to Dec 2024)
- Legends of Arthur and Merlin (Dec 2024)
- Viking Tales (Jan 2025)
- Knights, Castles, and Medieval Europe (Feb-April 2025)
- Medieval Asia including the Middle East (Oct 2024 and May 2025)
- Pre-columbian America (Maya, Aztecs, Incas) (June 2025)
- Italian Renaissance (June 2025)
American History: Living Books Stack
The states we studied this past year included North and South Dakota, Texas, Arizona, Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, and Oregon.
- Historical Fiction for the above states
- Picture and Chapter Books about Alaska
- Diverse Versions of Little House on the Prairie: read them all!
My 4th grader continued reading through the American Girl books chronologically. I enjoyed reading the earlier American Girl books to her last year but it was wonderful that she wanted to read the rest herself this year.
This year, she read Rebecca, Claudie, Samantha, Kit, and Molly. We realized we had missed Kaya, whose story is set before the rest, so then she went back to read Kaya’s stories.
Here is a list of all of the main American Girl book series in chronological order. By the main girls, I mean the 6-set American Girl books (with the exception of one girl) I’m compiling all the titles here for you because I had to keep looking them up every time my daughter was ready for the next book or the next American Girl!
Curriculum
For this time period of Ancient Greece through the Renaissance, our living book stack contains selections from Ambleside Online as well as My Father’s World.
Want to know what we thought about each book? Honest opinions from my kids and I in each post below:
- Selections from Ambleside Online Year 7, Medieval History
- Spines from Ambleside Online Year 2, Medieval History
- Spines from My Father’s World: Rome to the Reformation (Ancient Rome and Medieval History)
Book Club Selections
Some of our book club selections really kicked off reading for my emerging readers!
- Book Club Selections 2024-2025 with links to all of the free discussion guides provided by the publisher!
- Books for Emerging Readers
Fun Poetry
I can’t put this under “Curriculum,” that sounds too stuffy.
These fun poetry books kicked off interest in writing poetry, and introduced more junior bridge books for my 7 and 9 year olds!
Extra Reads!
- Books about the fantasy world of JRR Tolkien
- Middle School selections that we read aloud and did as audiobooks