I have spent much time in the research and planning of what books to read for the upper grade levels. I started with the Classical Homeschooling website "1000 Good Books" list. I went online and read chapters or excerpts of many of the books that I found interesting. I then compared the 1000 Good Books list with the Veritas Press reading recommendations. I went to the book store and looked at the books for size, print, readability, etc. I decided on several selections. After all that, I happened upon the Senior High Level, American Literature - Encouraging Thoughful Christians to be World Changers curriculum. The curriculum uses many of the same books I had chosen! We will be using that curriculum for our discussions and essay questions. There will be required reading out of class. The course will involve critical thinking skills, Biblical application, enrichment activities, objective questions, discussion questions, tests, and a final project. The course uses the cognitive-developmental approach based on Bloom's Taxonomy theories. Whatever evaluation technique you choose to use, this course is at least a one year/ one hour course credit. If students faithfully respond to the Biblical application questions every week and keep their Prayer Journal daily, in addition to the coursework, they may earn an additional high school 1/2 elective credit.

This is an article from Classical Homeschool explaining how they picked their selections:

"This 1000 Good Books List is by no means exhaustive. It is a listing of the books that 25 homeschooling mothers have come up with over the course of a year’s time through discussions of criteria to use in choosing a good book, and many other discussions about individual titles to include or exclude. If you know of books that are good that are not included in this list, by all means, do not let their exclusion stop you from reading them with your children. And similarily, if a book is included on this list that you just plain don’t like for whatever reason, then don’t read it. We firmly believe in the parents right and responsibility to have the ultimate choice in choosing reading material for their children. We have posted this list as a place to start, not necessarily as a place to end; since many of us did not have the benefit of careful discrimination in our reading material in our own childhoods and education.

The criteria we used to judge inclusion are: Does the book have literary value? Does the book re-emphasize a Biblical worldview or the Judeo-Christian heritage in some way? Does the book teach, through whatever means, what is moral or just or true? Does the book encourage to love and good works? Does the book exemplify warmth, tenderness, courage, humor, and other values and characteristics that we desire our children to be exposed to? Does the book nourish the intellect and fire the imagination? Does the book cross age barriers to be enjoyed by all?

The Bible, the best of the good books and the greatest of the great books, is the backbone of this good books / great books list. The books listed are offered in addition to the Bible, but certainly never in replacement of it.