Oh the choices!

So, now that I have my gigantic books lists, I need to narrow them down to the best choices. In the past (before massive book lists), I would get an armful of books about each topic we were learning about and lots of times we would read the information more than once. For example, if I had several books about butterflies we would read many times about the proboscis and the metamorphosis process. Often times I would skip a lot and just look at the pictures of the subsequent books, but I never checked to make sure the first book I read was the best. For early elementary it really didn't matter they were short books and very similar. But now in late elementary and looking forward to early middle school, the books are longer and it would be overwhelming to get repetitive books. So, now I am trying to find the "best" books from my lists.

Here is my current dilemma: For our second round of history (yes, I know that is at least 3 years away), I am looking at supplementing SOTW with either the Genevieve Foster books, The Story of Rome/Greece, or Famous Men of Rome/Greece. All of these books are on several lists. Right now I am leaning towards the Genevieve Foster books. They are on the Ambleside and Sonlight lists and Melissa Wiley's 12 yo is reading the Augustus Caesar's World. I may save the others for high school.

To sum up, I have now decided that less is more. Of course, this is after spending hours making massive book lists... The time was well used, however, because seeing certain titles on many lists helped me to see which books are well liked by many people.