Use your Heart of Dakota “library” for summer reading!

Use your Heart of Dakota “library” for summer reading!

Heart of Dakota (HOD) has so many amazing living books! The more guides you use, the more books you have. If you have used HOD for many years, you begin to have your own HOD “library.” I have now used HOD from preschool to 12th grade, so I truly do feel like I have my own “library” of books. To keep my HOD library organized, I simply print white address labels with the guide’s name and package. For example, I would label my Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory’s American Pioneers and Patriots book with “Beyond Economy Package.” I right justify the margin of the label, so the words print on the far right. Then, I wrap the label around the spine of the book. The reason I do this is because many books from our library end up in our sons’ rooms in the summer. Why? Well, let me explain!

Summer Reading Using Your HOD Library

I remember one summer Wyatt asked if he could reread American Pioneers and Patriots. I had read this aloud for history when we did Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory the homeschool year before. Wyatt had fond memories of it and wanted to reread it. I thought, why not? What a great idea! So, I set out all the books I’d thus accumulated from using HOD. I put them all across the kitchen table. There were already quite a few! I told my three sons they could read anything that was from an HOD guide they’d already done. They could not choose books for their guides to come. My goodness did those books fly off the table and into their rooms!

End of Summer Reorganizing

As the summer came to an end, the HOD library books needed to be returned to their proper home. This was usually pretty easy to do because anything with a white address label was easy to spot, even if it was in a pile or on a bookshelf. The label made it easy to see which guide and package to return it to. There were a few casualties. I do remember The Toothpaste Millionaire was left out in the fort when one of our sons was reading it outside. It rained, so that book looks a little worse for the wear. However, it still makes me smile to see its water-stained pages. Just think, one of my sons loved that book enough to hole up with it in his summer fort and read! Pretty special, really. No cause to be upset about that!

See which books your children love most by lending your HOD library books to them!

I always liked to see which books my sons loved the best when I set them out each summer. The red Eggleston books from Bigger Hearts for His Glory were always a favorite. Likewise, any of the Viking Quest series were favorites. As my sons grew older and had more hours working in the summer, we didn’t do this anymore. However, I just saw my oldest 21 year-old son rereading The Count of Monte Cristo.  Likewise, I saw my middle 18 year-old son rereading Dave Ramsey’s Foundations of Personal Finance. My youngest son has reread The Cabin on Trouble Creek too many times to count. I like to think it’s – in part – because they know they can. They have ‘permission’ to read books from our HOD library, and that is pretty neat if you ask me! Why not try it with your own children? You might be surprised which books they pick first!

In Christ,

Julie