LibreVox Audio Books
librivox.org
This site offers an interesting alternative:
free audio books. While these books are
available as downloads that are quite a bit
larger than their more traditional cousins, audio books can offer lots of fun for
long car rides or while you are commuting. All of the books are read by volunteers, so the quality can vary, but reading
part of a classic book to add to the archive might be a very interesting project.
It’s possible to download an entire book
at once or to subscribe to it as a podcast.
Bibliomania
www.bibliomania.com
Bibliomania is an interesting site that
gives you access to a number of the same
E-Books that are available on the other
sites. The most intriguing part of the site
consists of the other resources, including
a teacher’s research center, study guides
(many written by Oxford scholars), and
research resources.
Free Video Lectures
freevideolectures.com/Subject/Literature#
A number of universities have begun re-
leasing videos of popular courses online for
free. (Several of my own classes are avail-
able in this format.) The freevideolectures
.com site has complete courses on a num-
ber of interesting literature topics, from
Dante to the New Testament.
theBestNotes.com
There’s always debate about whether
students should read study guides. Personally, I think they can be helpful after
reading a book but are no substitute for
reading the actual work. Still, they can
be useful, and students will definitely
find them, so parents or teachers should
know about them. This site features nice
guides for many works. Each book includes overviews, character summaries,
and discussions of themes and concepts
in the book at hand.
Shakespeare Resource Center
www.bardweb.net
A study of Shakespeare’s works is impor-
tant in any literature program, and ad-
ditional resources can help students get
a more complete appreciation of those
works. The Shakespeare Resource Cen-
ter offers a number of helpful tools for
studying these works, including synop-
ses of every play, a detailed biography of
Shakespeare, a series of resources about
Shakespearean language, and a number
of interesting essays and articles about
the Bard of Avon and his works.
Consider making use of these resources as supplements to your literature
program. If you find anything I missed,
please feel free to stop by my website
and let me know about your discoveries:
www.aharrisbooks.net.
Blessings!
Andy Harris is a homeschool dad, father of
four great kids, and husband to the greatest
homeschool teacher ever. He has taught all
ages of students, from kindergarten to university level. Andy is the author of a number of
well-known books, including
HTML/XHT-ML/CSS: All in One for Dummies, Game
Programming—The L Line, PHP6/MySQL
Programming for the Absolute Beginner,
and Beginning Flash Game Programming
for Dummies. For more information about
his books, to see where he is speaking next, or
to just say hi, please stop by his website: www
. aharrisbooks.net
