One of our first projects was the Story Bible, where we preserved the language of the King James Version, but created a very readable copy with a large font and small bite sized stories to engage young -and old!-- readers.

A couple of years ago we took the text of just the New Testament stories and added spaces to glue fine art images we provided into the book for the Stories of Jesus.

I am happy to announce the Old Testament is now available with fine art images. We divided it into 2 books so that it isn't so big for little hands to hold. Not every story has an art image, but you hopefully will find enough to keep interest alive.

It is now available in our store. We hope it will aid in your study of the Old Testament!

The new Month 6 books are now in the store:

Imaginative Series: Jewish and Persian Tales. These Persian Tales are over 2000 years old and teach ‘the way of happiness.’

Epic Heroes: The story of Rustum and Sohrab, Persian heroes from the Shahnameh as told by Ferdowsi, who you will meet, by the way, in this month’s My World Story Book.

My World Story Book includes stories of great men from the Bible as well as other Middle Eastern figures, even a modern day real life Indiana Jones.

Great Lives, Month 6: I am very excited to bring you stories of Jewish heroes, written by a Jew, from an out of print book that I haven’t found a copy anywhere yet except for the copy I happened to pick up at a used book sale. You will also find chapters on the Parsi religion as well as Judaism, from the book Had You Been Born in Another Faith.

New Month 5 books are now in the store. They include:

Imaginative Tales from France and Canada. French fairy tales offer us stories of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, Little Red Riding Hood--and others. Canadian Tales offer us stories from the Native Americans of Canada.

Epic and Legendary Heroes is the story of Roland, who served under the great Charlemagne.

Great Lives--by rotation includes several additional stories of great women of France as well as a look at 3 of France's kings.
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My World Story Book continues to offer you stories from Arthur Mee's 1000 Heroes.

The new Month 4 books are now in the store:

Imaginative Series includes stories of Greek and Roman mythology, Aesop fables as told by popular folklorist, Joseph Jacobs and legends from Italy as told by Amy Steedman. I don't differentiate between Greek and Roman--that can be a fun activity for you and your kids to determine if the Greek or Roman mythological name was used.

My World Story Book continues to share stories of lives of familiar as well as lesser known men and women--all with the purpose of inspiring worthy attributes in your own lives. Just like Plutarch.

Epic and Legendary Heroes: I packed a lot in this book. You will find retellings of The Iliad, The Odyssey and The Aenied by master storyteller, Alfred Church, all written with young listeners in mind. Also, there is a retelling by Mary MacGregor of Charles Kingsley's The Heroes, introducing your young children to Perseus, Jason and Theseus. Mary's style is very similar to H.E. Marshall, who I know many of you are familiar with.

Great Lives rotation revision includes Plutarch's Lives as retold by F.J. Gould as well as a few other stories of great Italians and other Month 4 topics.

As per usual, these books are NOT designed to be read cover to cover in a single sitting. Rather, there is much to layer in over the years. Lots of opportunity to revisit and review.

The new Month 3 books are in the store!

Imaginative Tales are from England and Ireland. I drew heavily from Joseph Jacobs' retellings, if you are familiar with him.

Epic and Legendary Tales brings a couple of versions of King Arthur tales plus an introductory level story of Beowulf.

Great Lives is loaded with stories from the original Great Lives series, only sorted by rotation.

And My World Story Book brings you more of Arthur Mee's inspirational historical figures. It was really really hard to narrow down the choices! Arthur Mee was British so offered tons of stories to choose from. You'll see familiar names plus meet people you have probably never heard of before. But they all have something worthwhile to teach us about living life.

There are four new books in our store for Month 2.

My World Story Book continues to offer stories from Arthur Mee's 1000 Heroes. This month, learn about men and women from Spain and Holland.

Great Lives-Revised by rotation. There weren't a lot of lives in the original series from Holland and Spain--especially from Spain-- so I added stories from Charles Morris' Historical Tales from Spain.

Imaginative Tales--Folk and Fairy tales from Holland and Spain from a variety of books.

Epic and Legendary Heroes--El Cid, of course! The great legendary hero of Spain who fought for the Christians and then fought for the Muslims and then established a kingdom where they lived side by side together, which obviously didn't last. I have wondered why it has been so difficult to find Art and Imaginative tales and Music  from Spain to share with you--I think it's because they spent all their energies driving the Moors out of Spain, who were evidently more cultured and civilized than they were at the time, and then when they finally drove them out, they were too busy looking everywhere for gold. Spain has raised lots of questions in my own mind that I'm still learning about. Part of the challenge is that Spain was hated for so long, it's difficult to find positive things to read about her in the stories, especially in the literature from the era I draw from. It just means digging a little deeper...which I fully want to do. After all, Spain did give the world the incomparable Cervantes. And he is a true gift!

I've had several people ask, so I thought I'd let you know that you can now buy all the MASB images (or whichever months you want) in the store. You can find it in the Individual Books/Series side of the store under My America Story Book.

It's also not too late to sign up for My World Story Book Images subscriptions to get them in time for the start of September! You can sign up in the red box at the bottom of this page.

We are introducing four new series that are now available in the store, for both individual purchase as well as subscriptions.

Imaginative Series, filled with wonder tales from all around the world, organized around the rotation schedule.

Epic and Legendary Heroes Series, organized by rotation, starting with heroes of Scandinavia.

Revised Great Lives Series, Includes all the stories of the original series sorted by rotation rather than subject.  There are additional stories included in some of the months.  If you already own the other series, we will be making a supplement available to you, if you would like.  In the meantime, of course they are also available in the free digital books. (Note: If you are currently subscribed to the Great Lives series, you will finish out with that version so you have a complete matching set.)

My World Story Book, designed just like My America Story Book only with lives from men and women from around the world.  The stories are taken from Arthur Mee’s 1000 Heroes, which I will tell you about in a bit.  They are stories written to inspire hearts.  Images for notebooking are available, just like MASB.  Access everything at myworldstorybook.com.

Additionally, we are revamping the Nature/Art/Music series. The first 8 books (the nature topics) will remain the same. The last 4 books will be replaced with what is currently the Nature Bundle. The resulting series will just be called the Nature Series. Those 4 art/music books will be implemented in the Appreciation series that will be announced Fall 2022, but in the meantime are available for individual purchase in the "Other" category for those who want them. (Note: If you are currently subscribed to the Nature/Art/Music series, you will finish out the series as it currently stands so that you have a complete matching set.)
 
I am not ready to introduce the Appreciation Series, but there is one book that you can purchase now:  Symphony Stories. (You can find it in the "Other" category of the store.) On the Enrichment pages, I included musical selections with a link to stories for a simple music appreciation session.  These stories came from the North Carolina Youth Concert series notes.  For your convenience, we have now compiled them into one reference book for you, sorted by rotation.  You will also find a corresponding music list in Spotify. Look for "Symphony Stories for WEH."

If you sign up now for a subscription, we will do everything in our power to get books to you before September starts. But please be patient with us if we are unable to do so! We will get them to you as fast as we can!
 

We’ve recently been informed that our store website builder has added a feature where you can check the status of your order by clicking the “View Order Details” button in your order confirmation email. Just a head’s up that that information will not be accurate. Our orders get marked as shipped when our printer has received the order, but he still has to print the books and ship them out. Your actual shipping confirmation will come from Stamps.com with the subject line “Libraries of Hope has sent you a package.” We apologize for any confusion!

We've finished the four new series and they are now available in the store! This includes the individual books, as well as complete series bundle (which can be purchased separately or together in our Family Library Builder).

PLEASE NOTE: Prices will still go up on Thursday, July 15, as per the previous announcement.

​Sunshine Series:  The Golden Name Day is a little book I picked up in a thrift store and fell in love with it, partly because of its Scandinavian culture (I’m pure Swedish), and partly because the story is just so sweet and so WEH-ish.  It was up for the Newbery award the year it was published, but lost to Carry On Mr. Bowditch.  After some research, I found the text has fallen into the public domain, but unfortunately the Garth Williams illustrations are under copyright restriction, so I can’t share the pictures. But it’s so descriptive, it won’t be hard to paint your own pictures.  It’s a great story to start your year, leading into the Month 1 topic that includes Sweden.  You will also find an audio recording in BelMonde I made quite awhile ago. The second book in this volume is a favorite—Heidi—another little girl who finds joy in  simple things.
 
My America Story Book: America in Review.  While you have been picking up pieces of stories and introductions to the men and women of our history, this final volume will pull it all together in a narrative flow.  I chose a book written by Elbridge Brooks who also wrote True Stories of Christopher Columbus, The True Story of Lafayette, and the True Story of U.S. Grant, which are all found in the Freedom Series. The story ends a hundred years ago—when public domain runs out.  You’ll need to fill in the next chapters. 
 
Our Little Cousins takes us to the ancient land of India and the Hindus, which concludes all the little Cousins and Twins books we could find to republish.  Although it’s not a Little Cousins books, we also included a story of Kari, the Elephant which I think your young children will enjoy.
 
Finally, the World Freedom Series takes you back to where we started.  Charles Coffin wrote a sequel to The Story of Liberty called Old Times in the Colonies.  He continues the story up to the days of the Revolution.  As he wrote in his introduction, “Through the colonial period there was an advance of principles which are eternal in their nature.  All through those years conditions and influences were preparing men for self-government…When the world was ready for it, and not before, the American Revolution came, with the announcement that all men are created free and equal, and endowed with inalienable rights.” 

May we not lose that which was bought with so dear a price.