Please Note: A Beka does not sell their materials to Exodus Books. The following overview is meant to help you evaluate A Beka as a curriculum, and give you some other options to consider as well.
Designed as supplements to A Beka’s reading and literature programs, these are simply reprints of older books for students to read and report on. There are no teacher editions, no review questions, and only some of them have any kind of introduction or forward; a few are lightly illustrated.
To be used for middle and high school students, these books are either explicitly Christian or illustrate important virtues like perseverance and courage. Many are biographies of key figures from Elizabeth I to David Livingstone to Booker T. Washington. Others are historical fiction like The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott or On His Own by Horatio Alger, Jr.
Texts vary in length, but all of them are unabridged book length. A Beka calls them Book Report Books since students are to read them and write a précis of plot and characters as well as analysis of the book’s themes. There is nothing specifically directing this sort of assignment in any of the texts, however, so you could just as well use other books of your own choosing for the same purpose.
If you’re concerned about the content of your kids’ reading material these are safe choices, chosen as much for their literary quality as for their moral nature. There is also plenty of history—in the biographies it is straightforward, in the historical fiction it is present but less blatant. For educational and character-building literature that you won’t have to screen beforehand, these are good choices.
Did you find this review helpful?