One of the most common arguments I face when people hear about the Charlotte Mason method is, “But what if I’m not a reader?”

Granted, I myself have always loved reading, so I admit part of the appeal of the CM method to me really was the strong emphasis on plenty of reading. But do you know that most of the books that my boys are reading now, I’ve never read before either?

Growing Up Reading Twaddle!

Growing up, my favorite book series was the Sweet Valley Twins and Sweet Valley High series created by Francine Pascal. I also moved on to romance novels, and some, well, a very few, literary fiction. When I first learned about Charlotte Mason and living books, I realized, to my dismay, that all my life, I’d been feeding on twaddle! (A few years later, I digressed. Maybe they weren’t necessarily fully twaddle, but they were definitely very light reading compared to what CM would call a living book!)

In fact, I remember when I was in high school, a teacher assigned us a travelogue as a term project. I confidently wrote my imaginary story of traveling to Syria. Looking back, I know my writing style emulated what I was reading, so it was pretty much a Sweet Valley tale starring myself. When the teacher handed our work back, I got curious about the work of one of my classmates who got the same marks as I did. When I read it, my jaw dropped: this quiet wisp of a boy had written his travelogue set in the Philippines, but in sci-fi time travel to the future, and written in a fast-paced, engaging style!

That was when I found out that he read voraciously. And not just cookie-cutter short novels like I did; I found out he read classic books!

Of course, I didn’t really now the difference back then. I think up to that point, the only classic book I’d read was A Secret Garden, this old dusty copy I’d found in the school library. At that discovery about my classmate, I felt that I’d found a kindred spirit, and we swapped books. I lent him my Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, and he lent me his copy of Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.

And I was embarrassed to admit I trudged, slogged, plodded, fumbled my way through the book!

That was the last pair of books we exchanged.

Homeschooling Using Classic Books

And then here comes my homeschooled son, who at age 10, was able to read, understand, and narrate back Robinson Crusoe, unabridged.

Clearly, it’s not my own skills that brought him there. Instead, we benefited from the principles in the Charlotte Mason philosophy. For one, I’m not my child’s teacher, pouring out everything I know into their younger minds and smaller (physically, that is!) brains. Instead, I only put them in the way of things worth learning; I put them in the way of encountering great minds through excellently-written books. And it’s their minds that do the work.

Learning With AmblesideOnline

And me? I’ve started reading all the classic books on my children’s book lists too, partly so I know what they’re narrating back during school lessons, but more so for my own growth and learning, too. And I admit, it hasn’t always been easy. I find myself gravitating more towards books scheduled for the younger years; I like them for the “easy” reading experience. But like CM recommends for our children, we do need some “stretching” books, and that’s personally what I feel for many of the books from AmblesideOnline’s Year 5 onwards.

So does that mean only “readers” can use CM? I don’t agree. But I do think we all need to have the mindset of being willing to learn and grow. Because, once you try reading living books, like I did, and like my husband did (who was NEVER interested in reading! but that’s a story for another day), I have the feeling you will be drawn into whole new worlds yourself that you will not want to lose.