25 Books to Help You Decide if Unschooling is Right for You

If you’re considering unschooling as an alternative to traditional schooling for your child, you may be wondering what unschooling is all about. This list of 25 books will give you a good overview of the philosophy and practice of unschooling, to help you decide if it’s right for you.

These books will introduce you to the concepts behind this growing educational movement and share the stories of families who have made the switch to unschooling. Whether you’re just starting to explore this option or are already convinced that it’s the right path for your family, these books will provide plenty of food for thought.

Balanced and Barefoot

Balanced and Barefoot: How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children by Angela J. Hanscom and Richard Louv was written by a pediatric occupational therapist. The author explains the importance of free movement and outdoor play for cognitive and physical development. The author explains the science behind child development and why nature helps children. The book starts with a mother complaining about how her 6-year-old son won’t sit still in class so the school has recommended he be tested for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Changing Our Minds

Changing Our Minds: How Children Can Take Control of Their Own Learning by Dr. Naomi Fisher explains how children are naturally curious and love learning, but that forced, formal learning can breed anxiety and low self-esteem. She explains that expecting children to sit still for long periods of time has a negative effect on their education, and highly recommends self-directed learning or child-led learning.

Christian Unschooling

Christian Unschooling: Growing Your Children in the Freedom of Christ by Elissa Wahl and Terri Brown is a great read for Christian families considering the unschooling style of homeschooling. This book gives examples of what a typical day looks like for an unschooler, viewpoints from those who are unschooling, and gives lots of ideas of ways to incorporate learning into math, science, history, and language arts.

Free to Learn

Free to Learn by Peter Gray is written by a developmental psychologist. The author explains the importance of free play in order to develop emotional skills, social skills, and problem-solving skills. The premise of the book is that children need to play to learn. Play is not an escape from learning. Play facilitates learning. The author recommends letting children be in charge of their own education.

Home Grown

Home Grown: Adventures in Parenting off the Beaten Path, Unschooling, and Reconnecting with the Natural World by Ben Hewitt tells the story of his sons’ simple, non-traditional education. The author and his family live on a farm and they use everyday life as a learning opportunity. He offers advice about dealing with others’ opinions on unschooling and parenting. While the book does discuss unschooling, it is more about the way of life and philosophy that learning is everywhere and doesn’t have to take place in a classroom.

Homeschooling Gone Wild

Homeschooling Gone Wild: Inspired Learning Through Living by Karla Marie Williams shares the experience of a family who was traditionally homeschooling but switched to unschooling and the changes that happened as a result. The author says that the 3 rules to unschooling are respecting your child’s individuality, following their interests and letting them lead, and nurturing their interests. The author gives tons of ideas and also has a YouTube channel documenting their unschooling journey.

How Children Fail

How Children Fail by John Holt is a great read for those considering pulling their children from a traditional school setting. The author, who is credited as the creator of the unschooling method, was an educator who left the traditional school system after seeing the failures and became a homeschooling advocate. He discusses how information that is taught in schools is creating non-thinkers and giving adults too much control over education. He also held the philosophy that testing and grading children over material they have learned do not promote healthy learning.

How Children Learn

How Children Learn by John Holt is an observation-filled book written to discuss how children learn at an early age. John Holt observed several children over a long period of time and has incredible insights into the minds of children. His philosophy is that children naturally have a love for learning and it is no coincidence that many children lose that love of learning when they enter traditional schools. He promotes and encourages letting children take things apart, put them back together, and learn how things work.

One-to-One: A Practical Guide to Learning at Home

One-to-One: A Practical Guide to Learning at Home by Gareth Lewis gives specifics to parents of children ages 0-11 that are choosing unschooling. This book gives instructions on how to incorporate unschooling into everyday life. One of the biggest takeaways is that unschooling parents often feel like they aren’t doing enough for their children’s education. This book explains how battling children to do school work isn’t as productive as finding ways to learn the same things in a more meaningful, productive, fun manner. There are ideas for crafts, games, gardening, cooking, and more.

Punished by Rewards

Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes by Alfie Kohn provides insight on how rewarding and punishing children and adults alike is not effective. It helps parents know how to notice hard work done by their children instead of praising it. For example, saying “I noticed how hard you worked today in your soccer game” is a way to show your child that you noticed their HARD WORK. Saying “wow! You scored a goal! I’m proud of you” shows children that you are proud when they ACHIEVE something. The author explains the negative side of teaching children that parents are only proud of their accomplishments. Children can be left feeling like a failure when they don’t accomplish or do something perfectly.

Raising Free People

Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work by Akilah S. Richards is a first-person account of an unschooling family. This is a must-read for an person of color considering the unschooling approach, although anyone can benefit from the information in this book. The author explains that children learn everywhere. She gives examples of learning new languages on the Internet, playing games, meeting new people, and studying entrepreneurship. She goes on to explain that learning can occur at a restaurant or a park, and does not have to occur at school or from a textbook.

Sandra Dodd’s Big Book of Unschooling

Sandra Dodd’s Big Book of Unschooling by Sandra Dodd shares her experience unschooling her 3 children. Some of her beliefs are radical, such as TV use, divorce, and eating candy, but her overall belief that unschooling works hold true. She shares the unschooling lifestyle, concepts, and personal experiences her children had through unschooling.

Tales of a Toxic Teacher

Tales of a Toxic Teacher: Exposing the Cycles of Abuse Within Our Schools by Angela Harders/Ana Hurtarte is written by a former teacher in the public school system. She explains what teachers are asked to do, which is to teach children blind obedience, to trust authority, not to question authority or their own thoughts, and to comply at all costs. It is an excellent read for anyone considering pulling their children from a traditional school to homeschool or unschool.

Teens Unleashed

Teens Unleased: Unschooling Young Adults as They Reach for Their Dreams by Karla Marie Williams is written for parents of teenagers. It implores parents to allow their teenagers to follow their passions and interests and to rethink what learning should look like. The author has 6 children that she chose to unschool and discusses their journey and experiences. Her recommendation is to focus on natural skills and abilities and encourage them as opposed to focusing on what they are behind in. It promotes confidence and high-self esteem. Thinking back to high school, I hated chemistry and higher math and I remember feeling inadequate (even though I ended up being valedictorian, I still had those thoughts!). As an adult, my career path was language arts and writing based, so I could have skipped those classes and been just fine.

The 5 Hour School Week

The 5-Hour School Week: An Inspirational Guide to Leaving the Classroom to Embrace Learning in a Way You Never Imagined by Kaleena Amuchastegui and Aaron Amuchastegui discuss their experience with unschooling. They use every day things to educate their children. For example, their “lessons” vary from taveling, opening bank accounts, hiking, playing chess, making pancakes for breakfast, and grocery shopping. They only do 1 hour each day of math and reading, creating a 5 hour school week. While they are learning all week long, they only have 1 hour of formal school work each day.

The Call of the Wild + Free

The Call of the Wild and Free: Reclaiming the Wonder in Your Child’s Education, A New Way to Homeschool by Ainsley Arment is not just about unschooling, but all homeschooling styles with a focus on relaxed, child-led, and nature-focused learning. This book is what started my homeschooling journey and I am so glad I found this book! It really took the overwhelming feeling of educating my son away from me. It lessened my anxiety and helped me focus on the many benefits of homeschooling as opposed to all the scary thoughts I had at first.

The Unschooling Handbook

The Unschooling Handbook: How to Use the Whole World as Your Child’s Classroom by Mary Griffith shares interviews with unschoolers, discusses the benefits of unschooling, and explains what a typical day in the life of an unschooler looks like. One of the examples provided was finding seeds, planting them, studying what grows, and documenting their finds. This is a perfect example of what unschooling can look like and how it creates curious minds.

The Unschooling Unmanual

The Unschooling Unmanual: Nurturing Children’s Natural Love of Learning by Jan Hunt & Nanda Van Gestel is both reassuring and inspiring. The author shares tons of examples and stories about unschooling. This book serves less as a manual (it doesn’t tell you how to unschool), and more as inspiration and guidance for those already living the unschooling lifestyle.

Unschooled

Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom by Kerry McDonald holds the philosophy that children do not need to be taught to learn. This book gives tons of examples of what children learn when they are given the freedom to pursue their interests. The author writes about experiences from her years in traditional schools that wounded her and started her exploration into a different type of education – unschooling.

Unschooling as Homeschooling

Unschooling as Homeschooling: A Beginner’s Guide for Getting Started by Starr Green gives an overview of unschooling, explains how to transition an unschooling approach, shows examples of what unschooling looks like, and gives the author’s experience with unschooling her 2 children. The chapters are divided into subjects such as art & music, history & languages, and reading & writing, making it easy to find topics that children are interested in.

Unschooling Rules

Unschooling Rules: 55 Ways to Unlearn What We Know About Schools and Rediscover Education by Clark Aldrich is a must-read for those choosing to unschool. It gives rules such as:

• “learn something because you need it or because you love it”
• “formally learn only what is reinforced during the next 14 days (you will forget everything else anyway”
• “what a person learns in a classroom is how to be a person in a classroom”
• “animals are better than books about animals”

An Unschooling Manifesto

An Unschooling Manifesto: How One Family Found the Freedom to Live Their Dreams by Marla Taviano and Olivia Taviano is a real story of a family that stopped being “normal” and started doing things such as visiting 52 zoos in 52 weeks and taking a 5 week trip to Cambodia to educate their children instead of keeping them in mainstream schools.

Why Are You Still Sending Your Kids to School?

Why Are You Still Sending Your Kids to School?: The Case for Helping Them Leave, Chart Their Own Paths, and Prepare for Adulthood at Their Own Pace by Blake Boles answers all the questions that homeschooling parents have about unschooling. Can children still go to college? Does unschooling work? Can unschoolers be successful? The book also discusses alternatives to school, college, parent-child relationships, mental health, and connection.

Guerilla Learning

Guerilla Learning: How to Give Your Kids a Real Education With or Without School by Grace Llewellyn and Amy Silver proves that there are alternative ways for children to learn other than traditional schooling. The author aims to show parents that grades are unimportant, that kids want to learn, and how to have a more enjoyable learning opportunity than traditional schools provide.

Dumbing Us Down

Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling by John Taylor Gatto explains that children are naturally curious and enjoy learning, however, the school system takes away children’s problem-solving and independent thinking by the way it teaches. Instead, children are taught to memorize and follow rules.

Conclusion

Unschooling is a great choice for some families, but it isn’t the right fit for everyone. Most homeschoolers naturally evolve into the homeschooling style that works best for them. We hope that this blog post has helped you make an informed decision about your child’s education.