I haven't been able to read this entire book yet because (although I've had the book less than two weeks) I've already lent it out to a friend. At first it didn't look like much, but after reading a number of the essays, I've come to see why this book can be considered a real treasure. This is a collection of essays written by real homeschooling moms who share some of their experiences and the stories of how homeschooling has worked for their families. I thought it was nice just to hear ordinary moms explain how they adjusted a program to fit their needs, worked with their husband on determining how to balance structure and flexibility and how they've grown to see homeschooling as a wonderful way to develop a healthy, happy and holy family life and to encourage their children to really love learning for all the right reasons. So many families struggle with how to tailor homeschooling to their family's needs and to find the right balance between flexibility and structure, good academics and the joy of learning, etc. These essays provide a very valuable sense of the scope of possibilities available to Catholic homeschool families.

Due to the changing nature of the Internet world, the authors have provided a companion website where you can find current information on website addresses and other helpful info from the resource guide segment of their book.

A sequel, A Catholic Homeschool Companion, has been published by Sophia Institute Press.

Note: This review is based on the 1993/1998 editions of this book. The book was rewritten in 2006 and that edition has not yet been reviewed. Mary Kay Clark, who is the director of Seton Home Study has recently revised what was the first book published on Cathholic Homeschooling. It has quite a different flavor from Catholic Education: Homeward Bound and make a strong case for homeschooling from the perspective of Catholic teaching and Church documents. The author includes many practical ideas for running a busy household while homeschooling and finding creative ways of making a structured homeschool program flexible enough for your needs. Chapters include "How to Begin Catholic Home Schooling", "Home Schooling in the Large Family", "The Sacramental Life" and special chapters by other authors on topics such as "The Father's Role in Homeschooling", "Home Management in the Catholic Home Schooling Family" and "Home Schooling the Catholic LD Child." I particularly enjoyed the stories of the author's own homeschooling experiences with her seven boys and her practical ideas of making homeschooling work in the here and now by not expecting to be able to do everything perfectly (e.g. using paper plates and clearing out a lot of unnecessary clutter in the house).

Catholic Homeschooling fills and has filled an important role in the homeschool movement (particularly because it was simply the first book published on Catholic homeschooling) but, like all "advice" on homeschooling (including this website), should be used insofar as it is helpful to your family's needs rather than solely dictate how your family does everything (this, I believe, would be keeping with the author's intentions, particularly as she explains the role of Seton Home Study).

Out-of-date material:
"The only other comprehensive home study program for children which has accreditation is Home Study International, which is run by Seventh-Day Adventists." (p. 103) A number of Catholic homeschool programs as well as Protestant ones are now accredited if that's an important issue to you.

"If you want Catholic textbooks, you need to enroll in a Catholic home study school." (p. 100) This seems rather shockingly out-of-date even for the revision date of 1998. Many Catholic textbooks have been available from numerous sources (including TAN, Neumann Press, Seton Educational Media, Catholic Heritage Curricula, Emmanuel Books, Kolbe Academy, etc.) for a number of years without being enrolled in any school at all.

DYOCC is quite a bit different from the other books on Catholic Homeschooling. Instead of simply discussing homeschooling, as the other books do, Mrs. Berquist outlines an entire homeschool curriculum you can use with your children or adjust to your liking. She includes suggestions for putting together your own curriculum and a grade by grade outline which includes recommended texts, sample weekly schedules, a number of study guides, lists of important dates and people, poetry suggestions and extensive lists of appropriate literature and history stories. I found her introduction very helpful in fine-tuning my educational goals for my children. Even parents who are happily using another curriculum will find this book a very valuable source of supplemental resources and tips for making homeschooling more interesting and more successful. Some homeschoolers consider her to be much stronger in the history, literature and religion areas and a little weaker on Science and Math. To learn more about the classical liberal arts curriculum as described in her book, you can also read Dorothy Sayers' "The Lost Tools of Learning."