Creative Writing and Reading Aloud

I don't teach Creative Writing. Actually, there are a lot of things i don't do as a home schooler.  I am a firm believer in learning through osmosis.


I have a tape from a home school conference more than fifteen years ago entitled "Storytelling in your curriculum".  The speaker summed up her point in one statement: your children can only write stories out of the fund of stories that is within them.  It's very biblical: what you put in is what you'll get out.  


Mark Twain said that Moby Dick was the only American novel worthy of belonging to great world literature and every one of his themes was based on the Bible.  Her point is made.  


On a personal level, I used to tell the kids stories while we were waiting in the car for Steve to run errands.  I came up with one that was a combination of The Chronicles of Narnia, Merlin legends, Make Way for Ducklings, and Candyland.  It really did work.  


Anyway, we read a lot of living books in our house.  The only readers we use at our house are for the little ones, mostly so that they get the large print version!  And we read out loud.  I come from generations of read aloud cultures.  It's amazing what gets passed down!  My grandfather read Alice in Wonderland to my dad and his sisters, my dad read it to my brother and me, I've read it to my children.  We've read everything from A Tale of Two Cities and Moby Dick to Charlotte's Web and An Angel, a Shepherd, and Walter, the Christmas Miracle Dog.  Why, you may ask?


First of all, for the relationship it develops between me and my children.  Sarah ,at 14, discovered Jane Austen and we read ALL of them.  We are now working on The Lord of the the Rings.  We talk, do chores, knit, ask questions, answer questions; she started to get ahead of me in recognizing foreshadowing.  


The reason I am wrote this post.  Ben, at 20, skyped us from his internship up north.  He is writing something he has been working on for years and wanted to know my recommended reading list for Creative Writing.  Here it is.


For Characterization: Jane Austen, esp.