I got my oldest hooked on Bernard Cornwall which lead to CS Forester and then to Robert Louis Stevenson.
It gave him the start on vocabulary and a bit of history.
Start with the current age and start taking them back through history.
By the time you get to Shakespeare they have the vocabulary to understand what they are reading.
Yes. I grew up being raised by pretty old people, and the books in the house were also old. I loved to read from a very early age, and those books were an education.
(My husband is a great fan of the Hornblower books.)
Strange story that you may be able to help me with.
My father served with the Marines in the Pacific during WWII. My grandmother always said that ‘he was at Iwo’, but my father wouldn’t talk much about the war. All I’ve figured out is that he was probably on some kind of ship that lent support there.
When he came back from the war, he was staying with his mom and stepdad, and one night he had a nightmare. He had been reading a novel about a man imprisoned in a tower, who jumped out of the tower to escape; and somehow the story got into my father’s dreams.
Daddy awoke in fear, and tried to throw himself out of a window. A big piece of glass punctured him, and they had to get a lung surgeon to fix him up. He had a big scar under his breast the rest of his life.
What book was that? For some reason, I keep thinking Stevenson; but all I really remember is that it was an old book...
***which lead to CS Forester and then to Robert Louis Stevenson.***
Read lots of books by these two along with Jules Verne!