Weeks 3-4

During Week 3 and Week 4, you will be choosing from the CLASSICAL and BIBLICAL units. You can do a Classical in Week 3 and a Biblical unit in Week 4, or Classical units for both weeks, or Biblical units for both weeks — it's up to you. Also, if you want, you can use Week 4 to jump ahead to the Middle East and India: Middle Eastern / Indian reading options.

**NEW TINY TALES: There's a Tiny Tales from Aesop option, with 100-word Aesop's fables available as a free ebook/audiobook for one or two weeks of reading.

To get a sense of some of the stories that are coming, here's a random image from one of the units (reload to see more). Below the random image you will see a list of all the reading options.


Length. The units are all appx. the same length (15,000 words total, divided into two parts: A and B), but the contents are very different, so it's important to take a few minutes to make your choice. Don't just make your decision based on the title of the unit. Instead, take a few minutes to read through the first story and see what you think. If the actual story does not grab you, then try another unit. Here is a complete list of the units with a brief description for each one:

Ancient Greece:
Homer's Iliad: A condensed prose retelling of Homer's Trojan War epic by Alfred Church.
Homer's Odyssey: Tales of Odysseus's wanderings in a prose translation by Tony Kline.
Aesop (Jacobs): A selection of fables edited by Joseph Jacobs, with illustrations by Walter Crane.
Aesop (Winter): Yet more fables (no overlap with Jacobs) as illustrated by Milo Winter.

Ancient Rome:
Ovid's Metamorphoses: Ovid I including Phaethon, Narcissus, and Perseus; Ovid II including Persephone, Niobe, and Medea; Ovid III including Daedalus, Pygmalion, and Hercules.
Cupid and Psyche: Apuleius's elaborate fairy-tale love story in a translation by Tony Kline.

From the Bible:
Bible Women: Stories about women from both the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Gospels.
Gospel of Mark: The complete Gospel of Mark (from the King James version of the Bible).

Biblical Stories plus Apocrypha:
Adam and Eve: The Genesis account, plus Jewish legends and Christian apocrypha.
Noah: The Genesis account of both Noah and Babel, plus Jewish legends and folklore.
Infancy Gospels: The Luke and Matthew accounts, plus two apocryphal gospels.

Later Legends:
Women Saints: The lives of famous women saints from the medieval Golden Legend.
Saints and Animals: Modern retellings of the lives of the saints and their "friendly beasts."
Jewish Fairy Tales: A selection of fairy tales inspired by the Bible and other Jewish legends.

Types of Units:

You can also search for specific features based on your personal reading preferences; these links below go to the Diigo catalog where you will find links to the units plus a description:

Units with explanatory NOTESClassicalBiblical
Free AUDIOBOOK versionsClassicalBiblical
Lots of SHORTER storiesClassical
Few stories but LONGER
Biblical
One CONTINUOUS storyClassicalBiblical
Stories for CHILDREN Classical
Stories in VERSE ClassicalBiblical
Units with ILLUSTRATIONS ClassicalBiblical