Inspired by reading challenges offered by many public libraries but limited to people in those specific communities and the success of our 2023 Reading Challenge, GSHE is organizing a 2025 Reading Challenge for NH’s homeschool community!
It is just for fun, to help young readers explore new authors, subjects, and genres. Our monthly challenges will be very broad so families may choose whatever book they wish and feel is appropriate for their children.
Participants are not required to complete book reports, give oral presentations, create a formal project, or send in anything to GSHE. Families are free to incorporate our reading challenge into their child’s learning as they see fit. If you choose to keep a record of participation, it can be part of your child’s homeschool portfolio!
Participation
For 2025, GSHE will not collect reading logs, track participation, or issue a year-end prize. Families are free to extend the Reading Challenge in any way they wish; perhaps provide a monthly incentive to encourage your child’s reading such as a new book if they complete all monthly challenges.
For kids that are not reading independently, audio books and books you read together are perfectly fine. Any reading ability is welcome to participate.
GSHE has several resources for free books in our directory that you can access with a free registered account.
Let’s get started!!
For August, read a story set in a different time period!
This is an opportunity to stretch your child’s mind to travel to the past or future! It can be fiction or non-fiction, too, so use this as an opportunity to explore. Some stories were made into movies, too, so that can be another way to expand the discussion with your children.
Suggested Books
Rochelle Alexandra – In Alexa’s Shoes
Amanda Barratt – The White Rose Resists: A Novel of the German Students Who Defied Hitler
Beowulf
Ray Bradbury – Fahrenheit 451
Joseph Bruchac – Code Talker: A Novel About the Mavajo Marines of World War Two
James Fenimore Cooper – The Last of the Mohicans
Stephen Crane – The Red Badge of Courage
Marguerite de Angeli – The Door in the Wall
Philip K Dick – The Man in the High Castle
Ken Follett – The Pillars of the Earth
Esther Forbes – Johnny Tremain
Anne Frank – Diary of Anne Frank
Alex Haley – Roots: The Saga of an American Family
Nathaniel Hawthorne – Scarlet Letter
Robert Heinlein – Citizen of the Galaxy
Victor Hugo – The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Thomas Keneally – Schindler’s List
Madeleine L’Engle – A Wrinkle in Time
Jack London – The Call of the Wild
Lois Lowry – Number the Stars
Arthur Miller – The Crucible
Lucy Maud Montgomery – Anne of Green Gables
Charles Nordohoff – Mutiny on the Bounty
Scott O’Dell – Island of the Blue Dolphins
Annette Oppenlander – 47 Days: The True Story of Two Teen Boys Defying Hilter’s Reich
Margi Preus – Heart of a Samurai
Walter Scott — Ivanhoe
Ruta Sepetys – The Fountains of Silence
John Steinbeck – The Grapes of Wrath
Robert Louis Stevenson – Treasure Island, Kidnapped
Rosemary Sutcliff – The Eagle of the Ninth (The Roman Britain Trilogy Book One)
Kurt Vonnegut – Harrison Bergeron
HG Wells – The Time Machine
Laura Ingalls Wilder – Little House on the Prairie
Kip Wilson – White Rose
Suggested Authors
Isaac Asimov – Foundation series
GA Henty books – nearly 100 books of adventure and historical fiction
David Macaulay – Cathedrals, Castles, Pyramids
Gary Paulsen – Soldier’s Heart, Hatchet
Elizabeth George Speare – The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Calico Captive, and The Bronze Bow
Mark Twain – Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Prince and the Pauper
