We home educate 3 children. Their current ages are 8 years and 6.5 year old twins. We struggle (big time!) to find enough books to devour. The kids love reading, and they especially love Mummy to read chapters of books every day. I kid you not! When we find a good one, we want to celebrate and share it with the world!
This book became my son’s favourite story so far. My daughters also refused to let me put it down (especially at bed time – “One more chapter and I promise…”. to then be met with “One more page and I promise…” until I’d read for at least 30 – 60 minutes! So if you want to know whether this is worth reading, then hopefully this review will help you decide.
Rooftoppers
A brief synopsis of this book is that a girl is told her Mum died in a shipwreck when she was just one year old. A gentleman found the girl and took her under his wing. He home educated her, and whilst they touched on occasional ‘school style lessons’, her life was mostly free of that (unschooling). She and her father-figure grew a deep love of each other.
This happy home continued until the girl was growing into a teenager. One day the local authority equivalent announced that a man should not be raising a young woman. They served a short notice that she would be taken into a foster home and removed from his care. They ran away to France, where the girl met an orphan boy who lived on the roof. They became friends as the girl searched for who she believed to be her Mum.
Possible Themes To Consider Before Reading To Kids
Like so many of the current brilliant young children books at the moment, this book frequently mentions the death of the girl’s mother. In a similar way to my worry about a similar story theme in Hannah Gold’s The Last Bear, I was a bit concerned if too much reference to mum’s having died would cause my kids alarm. They seem to have coped fine with it, and I guess especially as it all turned out well by the end of the story.
There was a short theme of violence where some rooftoppers attacked the other kids. I skimmed over some of this as I read it to my kids, as it was perhaps a little graphic for 6 and 8 year old sensitive kids. They didn’t seem too scared by my skimmed version of the story. Perhaps they would have been fine if I’d read the whole section in full, but I didn’t want to cause them nightmares right before bedtime. I’m sure the kids will read the full version themselves, but they’ll now know it’s safe and all will work out fine with the rooftopper kids.
There was one part of the story where there was a little rooftopper girl who didn’t talk to the main character in the story. The main character asked the little girl’s bigger sister if she’s able to talk. There was reference to the little girl being ‘strange’. This was a very real-life scenario as none of my children talk to people they don’t know yet. And people have asked similar things ‘can they talk?’ and ‘why won’t they talk to me?’ and ‘I think they must be deaf’, etc. So I guess our society at large would agree that this is ‘strange’. I am at peace that just because our society behaves a certain way, doesn’t make it natural, thanks to completing some Gordon Neufeld courses. My kids are very well attached to both of their parents and their other two siblings, so their need to talk to others is very low. This obviously can seem strange, but is in fact, perfectly healthy for them. I worried internally whether my kids would take offense to the ‘strange’ references to the little rooftoper girl, but they didn’t seem to.
Why I Liked Rooftoppers, As A Mother of 3 Young Kids
I like that this story touched on home education as an alternative option, where the girl learned phenomenal amounts through life. She and her father-figure had a love of reading and she basically lived life as an unschooler. In my opinion, this book presented home education in a positive light and was quite accurate to how real life as an unschooler is. The fact that home education is real-life for my 3 children, it clearly matters whether the path their taking is presented positively or not.
I personally loved the storyline of trusting your gut instincts and following a dream til the end. I cried a little at the end of the book, which shows that Katherine Rundell had built deep characters and stories to make you feel so emotional for the girl and the other characters at the end of the book.
Certain themes in this book could almost have been written about my family, although my Google searches didn’t look like Katherine Rundell was homeschooled and nor does she home educate her kids… So however she came up with these themes I am impressed with how well-thought out they were. It looks from my recent book reviews like I’m in search of stories about unschooled kids, doesn’t it? Well, I haven’t been, I’ve just been in search of heart-warming and well-written stories and it just so happens that two of our favourites have a home education theme within them. It was a surprise bonus for us to read books which didn’t focus on the pressures and stresses of school, but the content of these stories were superb even if the kids had gone to school.
Why My Kids Liked The Rooftoppers
I know the kids all loved this book immensely. My son asked me to read it again as soon as I’d finished. He was disappointed it had ended. I guess they could associate with the girl. The book made my 8 year old in particular ask many questions – about France, about whether rooftoppers really existed, about why the local authority decided to do what they did, etc. They liked the pace of the story and it kept them gripped on the edges of their beds as to what would happen next.
Gentle Parent 