Literature: Term 1 Super Pack

Purchase a discounted term (16 weeks) of classes! This includes:
Adventure (4 weeks)
Without quite meaning to, both Bud and Ben end up having some crazy adventures! Within lives of monotony and routine, they experience the unordinary. Who ever heard about a ten-year-old who already wrote three books? Or a six-year-old living with a badger for months? Hang on for this wild ride, as we join Bud to find his father, and look high and low for where Ben could be.
 
Courage (4 weeks) 
What would it be like to be an outlaw in England or live through the Cultural Revolution in China in the 1960s? We may not be able to go back in time and live through these experiences ourselves, but that’s why we have books! Through books, we can learn what it was like for people in different time periods and different major historical events. Join us as we discover courage, a value that’s as timeless as the books we’ll find it in.
 
Loyalty and Friendship (4 weeks)
Are you familiar with the phrase dog is a man’s best friend? There’s so much we can learn from animals! Animals can show us how to be kind, compassionate, loyal, friendly, and hardworking. Through the lens of a horse, a boy, and two dogs, let’s see what animals will teach us in these two award-winning books.
 
Families (4 weeks)
Imagine having twelve siblings, or having to live for a year with a grandma who’s known for shaking up her neighbors! After reading these books, you won’t have to imagine: you’ll know. It gets pretty crazy in the Gilbreth family, a family with a dozen kids, when the dad decides that, in order for everyone to learn Morse code, he’s going to tape morse code clues all over the house (including in the bathroom) and the first child to decode them all wins a prize. It doesn’t stop at the kids, either; it turns out that grandmas can be just as exciting. Let’s read about it!
 
Day and Time: Thursdays, 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM ET
Bundle Duration: 16 Weeks
Dates: September 19, 2024 - January 30, 2025
No class November 28, December 19, 26, January 2, April 17
Recommended for: Ages 11+ / Grades 6-7
Teacher: TTK Faculty
Required Materials:* 
Bud, Not Buddy, by Christopher Paul Curtis
Incident at Hawk's Hill, by Allan W. Eckert
The Adventures of Robin Hood, by Roger Lancelyn Green
Red Scarf Girl, by Mark Twain
Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell
Where the Red Fern Grows, by Wilson Rawls
Cheaper by the Dozen, by Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
A Year Down Yonder, by Richard Peck
 
See more literature classes: thethinkingkid.org/literature
See more classes for ages 11+ / grades 6-7: thethinkingkid.org/grades-6-7
 
Bud, Not Buddy, by Christopher Paul Curtis
It’s 1936, in Flint, Michigan. Times may be hard, and ten-year-old Bud may be a motherless boy on the run, but Bud’s got a few things going for him:
He has his own suitcase full of special things.
He’s the author of Bud Caldwell’s Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself.
His momma never told him who his father was, but she left a clue: flyers advertising Herman E. Calloway and his famous band, the Dusky Devastators of the Depression!!!!!!
 
Incident at Hawk’s Hill, by Allan W. Eckert
Six-year-old Ben is very small for his age and gets along better with animals than people. One June day in 1870, Ben wanders away from his home on Hawk's Hill and disappears into the waving prairie grass. This is the story of how a shy, lonely boy survives for months in the wild and forges a bond with a female badger.
 
The Adventures of Robin Hood, by Roger Lancelyn Green
The classic story of social justice and outrageous cunning. Robin Hood, champion of the poor and oppressed, stands against the cruel power of Prince John and the brutal Sheriff of Nottingham. Taking refuge in the vast Sherwood Forest with his band of men, he remains determined to outwit his enemies.
 
Red Scarf Girl, by Ji-Li Jiang
It's 1966, and twelve-year-old Ji-li Jiang has everything a girl could want: brains, popularity, and a bright future in Communist China. But it's also the year that China's leader, Mao Ze-dong, launches the Cultural Revolution—and Ji-li's world begins to fall apart.
 
Over the next few years, people who were once her friends and neighbors turn on her and her family, forcing them to live in constant terror of arrest. And when Ji-li's father is finally imprisoned, she faces the most difficult dilemma of her life.
 
Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell
A jet-black young colt, Black Beauty, spends his early years in a cozy meadow growing up with a gentle master, a strong mother, and an ideal upbringing. Through the years, he changes hands with different masters–some rough, some kind, some indifferent. Black Beauty’s experiences throughout his life give him lessons on real friendship, loss, hardship, and human nature.
 
Where the Red Fern Grows, by Wilson Rawls
Billy has long dreamt of owning not one, but two, dogs. So when he’s finally able to save up enough money for two pups to call his own—Old Dan and Little Ann—he’s ecstatic. But tragedy awaits these determined hunters—now friends—and Billy learns that hope can grow out of despair and that the seeds of the future can come from the scars of the past.
 
Cheaper by the Dozen, by Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
What do you get when you put twelve lively kids together with a father—a famous efficiency expert—who believes families can run like factories, and a mother who is his partner in everything except discipline?
 
A Year Down Yonder, by Richard Peck
Mary Alice's childhood summers in Grandma Dowdel's sleepy Illinois town were packed with enough drama to fill the double bill of any picture show. But now she is fifteen, and faces a whole long year with Grandma, a woman well known for shaking up her neighbors-and everyone else! All Mary Alice can know for certain is this: when trying to predict how life with Grandma might turn out . . . better not.
 
*Students must have the books to participate in the course.