Home educated characters

I was handed a revelation the other day. 

It stunned me for a couple of hours. Leighton was amused. 

A home educating mum was asking for examples of fiction books she could use to normalise home educating to her child.

Now there have been plenty of modern books written specifically with this aim in mind but I'm not acquainted with them, so I didn't weigh in. I was curious however to read a few responses. 

The answers blew my mind. 

What do the following titles have in common? 


Railway Children - Edith Nesbit 

Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Swiss Family Robinson - Johann David Wyss

Eight cousins and Little Women - Louisa May Alcott

Heidi - Johanna Spyri

My family And Other Animals - Gerald Durrall  


They were firm favourites of mine growing up between the age of 7-20 years old. 

The main characters were home educated!

How I have never seen that connection before is embarrassing considering how many hundreds of times I have read these books. I'm sure they'll be plenty more. I read countless of books based in schools too, but the fact that this has bypassed me for so long is unacceptable. 

It was definitely an 'I was 35 when I discovered' that many of my favourite literary characters were home educated moment.

Heidi is one of Sophia's favourite books, she loves the scenes where Heidi and Peter roam around the mountain, tending the goats, learning through life experience. I will introduce these other classic books to the children when the timing is right. 


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