Why does Ambleside use books that are so challenging for most children?

Can children follow the plots of many books read slowly in the same term? Why shouldn't I just read the books at a quicker pace so my child can focus on just one or two at a time?

Education is more than the accumulation of knowledge. Maturity and wisdom require reflective thought about ideas. Rushing through lots of books doesn't leave the book in contact with the child long enough to make the kind of lasting impression that will influence him. Getting through a book at a quick pace leaves room for little else besides a brief brush with the storyline; it leaves no time for the mind to linger with the characters and contemplate their moral aspect. Taking an entire term to read a book allows the child to almost live the book in a way not possible if he breezed through it in a week or two before picking up the next one. Ambleside schedules a few books to be savored simultaneously over the entire term to give the child more time with the ideas and allow him more than casual contact with its ideas. In the end, it may result in fewer books being read, but the books are chosen with excellence in mind with an emphasize on quality over quantity. Children seem to have no more trouble following along with six books at a time than many people do following various soap operas. Read more about this topic here.

Why does Ambleside use books that are so challenging for most children?

Charlotte Mason wanted to put students in direct contact with the best minds of all time, so she had her students reading first hand from books written by great minds with great ideas. Retellings of these books will usually be inferior, watered down versions of the original. The strength of great literature is often in its detailed depiction of characters who come to life as we read and allow us to see a different world through their eyes and consider their moral dilemmas - this is the kind of reading that helps a child firm up his own convictions. When books are abridged, they are stripped of almost everything but the plot line, and the wonderful vividness of the characters is sacrificed.

Children are at their prime stage of development to learn language - and what better vocabulary teacher is there than a well-written but challenging book? As Charlotte Mason found a hundred years ago, and Marva Collins found more recently, even children lacking the benefits of a good education will rise to the challenge of understanding difficult books when given a chance. Charlotte Mason said that "children naturally take to literary expression. They love hearing it, reading it, and using it in their own tellings and writings. We should have known this a long time ago. All the old ballads and songs of the ancient wild warriors and barbaric kings have been thought too complicated for anyone but highly educated people to enjoy. But we'll soon see that only minds like a child's could have produced such fresh, finely expressed thoughts. Children have a natural aptitude for literature. Their inclination for it can overcome the challenge of the vocabulary without effort. Knowing that should direct the kind of teaching we give." (see vol 6, pg 91)

It's difficult to train up children to be readers of Great Literature on a diet of easy books. It's even more difficult if books have to compete with TV and video games for a child's attention. An understanding and appreciation for challenging books begins with early exposure to well-written literature that uses rich literature and demands something of the child's mind. An accurate definition of "living books" is imperative, as well the use of narration to help the child's mind work with the material, and teach him how to pull knowledge from books.

Read Colleen Manning's article about how "Living Books" are defined in a CM education here. Also, there is more great discussion on this topic here as well as Wendi's thoughts on the benefits of words vs pictures in education here.