Book Review: Catholic Homeschool Treasury

A Catholic Homeschool TreasuryA Catholic Homeschool Treasury: Nurturing Children’s Love for Learning

by Rachel Mackson and Maureen Wittmann
Kindle Edition 2011
1999 Ignatius Press

I recently downloaded the Kindle version of A Catholic Homeschool Treasury, not realizing that it was actually a newish edition of a 1999 book. It does appear that the authors updated the resources section, but the majority of the text is from 1999 which means it is a bit dated. That being said, it is still interesting to read this “sampling of how those in the trenches are successfully finding their way through the homeschooling maze.”

The book features articles by various Catholic homeschool parents, representing different varieties of homeschooling styles as well as different age and size families. They offer successes, failures, and lessons learned. The unifying factor is that “all desire to raise and educate our children within the family. And we wish to share with them the richness and beauty of our Catholic faith.”

Even as a veteran homeschooler, I did pick up several valuable ideas from this book as well as created a list of resources I want to look into. Perhaps the most valuable tip came from Maureen Wittmann who suggested making a list of the reasons why you homeschool so that you can refer to it when you are discouraged.

As an aside, I think it would be interesting to find out what happened to this collection of homeschoolers over the course of the past fifteen years.

Author: Patrice Fagnant-MacArthur

Patrice Fagnant-MacArthur, editor of "Today's Catholic Homeschooling", is the mother of two biological sons and one adopted daughter. She is in her seventeenth year of homeschooling. She has a B.A. in History and Fine Art and a Master's Degree in Applied Theology. She is the author of "The Crash Course Guide to Catholic Homeschooling" and "The Fruits of the Mysteries of the Rosary". She blogs at spiritualwomanthoughts.blogspot.com