So You're Thinking About Homeschooling

Really, there ought to be more books like this. Lisa Whelchel isn't interested in giving you ALL the basics of how to get started in homeschooling—as she (accurately) observes, there's enough of those already. So You're Thinking About Homeschooling is designed to help those considering home education make the choice based on reasons other than purely intellectual ones.

First, she introduces you to her own family, offering a general picture of what homeschooling looks like for them, why they chose it over other schooling options, and how it has affected the kids. Then she offers portraits of fourteen other "families" (actually composites drawn from hundreds of interviewees), showing the diversity among families dedicated to teaching their children at home.

Sometimes the conversational style she employs can be overwhelming or downright cheesy, but the content more than makes up for this deficiency. Too many beginners (or parents still on the fence) want to know what a "typical" homeschool family looks like, but as Whelchel points out they all look different; her cross-section is designed to capture the essence of as many types as possible.

Whelchel writes with two main assumptions—that every child is different, and that there is no one right way to homeschool. She introduces readers to concepts like literature-based curriculum, unit studies, independent study programs, and all those other ideas and terms that can overwhelm newcomers so easily. But her commitment to story-telling rather than fact-compiling sweetens the pill considerably.

There is a first-rate appendix including resources for in-depth research of these themes and others, and because So You're Thinking About Homeschooling wasn't written in the Pleistocene Era each reference includes the applicable website. Unlike many homeschool apologists, Whelchel doesn't assume you'll settle in favor of home education—which, in the end, makes her approach all the more compelling.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he's a husband and father who loves church, good food, and weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur. Read more of his reviews here.