About Us

The Homeschool Bookshop

About us

I remember looking at my three boys and knowing, in that way you sometimes just know, that our faith and their education were the same question. As our faith had deepened over the years, so had our sense of what we wanted for them; not as two separate things pulling in different directions, but as one. We wanted them to grow up with roots. Deep ones.

I wanted their faith to be theirs. Not something they sat through on Sundays and left at the church door, but something alive in them, part of the way they thought, the way they read, the way they understood the world and their place in it.

I wanted them to experience great literature and love it. To learn history as a story with God at the centre of it. To study Latin not as a dead language but as a key to something ancient and alive. To grow up knowing not just that their faith was true, but why; and to have the intellectual and spiritual formation to live it with conviction.

And I wanted books. The right books. The books that would do all of that.

The problem, if you are a Catholic homeschooling family in the UK, is finding them.

Where this shop came from

We have been homeschooling for more than five years. We are a solidly Catholic family that loves Mass every Sunday and attends weekday mass as often as possible, faith at the centre of our home, the liturgical year marking our seasons. Over those years, following a classical and traditionally Catholic approach with our children, we gradually discovered that the resources we most wanted were almost entirely unavailable here.

The best classical Catholic curriculum is American. Many of the richest family faith formation books are American. The wonderful illustrated catechisms, the saint biographies written with genuine literary care, the programmes that integrate faith and learning without either watering down the academics or treating the faith as an add-on. Almost all of it sits on the other side of the Atlantic, behind expensive international shipping and unpredictable customs charges.

We ordered anyway, because the books were worth it. Around us, other mothers were doing the same: individual orders, individual shipping costs, everyone paying through the nose separately. It made far more sense to order together. That is genuinely how this shop began; a group order, a shared delivery, and the realisation that there was a real need here that nobody was meeting.

What we carry and why

Our focus is classical Catholic curriculum and family faith formation books. We stock what we believe in, which means everything here is something we have used ourselves, recommended to a friend, or read and thought: yes, this is exactly what I was looking for. We are not trying to carry everything. We are trying to carry the right things.

We lean toward the classical tradition: the great books, the liberal arts, history and literature and Latin taught as living things. We love programmes that take children seriously as thinkers. We look for authors who trust children with a rich vocabulary rather than reaching for the lowest common denominator, and for stories where goodness is actually portrayed as good. If you have ever stood in a school book fair wondering how quite so many badly behaved characters came to be celebrated as heroes, you will know exactly what we mean. We believe, because we have seen it with our own children, that a classical Catholic education does not just fill a mind; it forms one.

Alongside the curriculum and faith formation books, you will find books on marriage, parenting and family life, the ones that have shaped us and that we wish someone had handed us years ago.

If I could press one book into the hands of every Catholic homeschool mum I meet, it would be The Temperament God Gave Your Kids. Not because it solves everything, for nothing does, but because it changed how I saw my children. It gave me a framework rooted in Catholic anthropology for understanding who they actually are, rather than who I had assumed they would be. That is the kind of resource this shop is built around: genuinely useful, genuinely Catholic, and rooted in love for actual children in actual families.

The gift shop

The gift collection grew from something slightly different. Visiting Catholic bookshops and gift stores in America, we kept finding the most wonderful things: beautifully designed items for children and families, full of joy and Catholic culture, that simply did not exist in the United Kingdom market. We started reaching out to brands directly. Be A Heart and Catholic Family Crate were among the first, and we have been slowly curating a small collection for UK families ever since.

It is honest to say this collection is still small. We are growing it carefully, and we are actively looking for more makers, designers and producers who share our sense of what Catholic home life can look and feel like. If you create beautiful things for Catholic families, we would love to hear from you.

A note for publishers and trade partners

If you are a publisher or maker looking to reach UK Catholic families, we would genuinely love to talk. This is an underserved market and we are doing our best to serve it well. Please get in touch at help@catholichomeschoollife.com

We are so glad you found us.

This is a small shop run by a homeschool mum who cares deeply about getting this right. Everything here is chosen with love and with your children in mind. We hope you find something that makes your home school a little richer and if you cannot find what you are looking for, please ask. We are always listening, always adding, always trying to do better.

Keeping you and your children in our prayers and entrusting this whole endeavour to Our Lady, who knows better than anyone what it is to raise a child with great purpose.

 

In Christ,

Michelle Hallam 

homeschoolbookshop.co.uk  ·  help@catholichomeschoollife.com