


Stella Maris promotes the reading of Great Books as the way of understanding oneself as member of a great story, a fascinating narrative calling the student to honor his past with gratitude and build the future with magnanimity.
Students are called to discover themselves as members of a community and to become main actors in their own life. Through the great stories of Sacred Scripture, universal, British and American literature, our students expand their imagination and become capable of building lasting and truthful relationships. Those bonds are not superficial but they constitute the heart of the person.
Our teachers see each student in the context of their family narrative, valuing their personal experiences and recognizing their challenges. The teacher’s role extends beyond the classroom to include a close working relationship with parents, acknowledging the various circumstances and relationships that shape the student’s journey. The teacher understands the student’s maturity level and guides them in interpreting life experiences aligned with their unique calling and purpose.
What Books?
Stella Maris School embraces the Liberal Arts educational tradition. Books are key for the development of the intellect, heart and imagination of our students. Therefore, we carefully select the books to be read and discussed in the classroom. Our list of books combines readings that:
- offer a path of virtue according to their age, inspiring greatness and good character,
- have endured the passage of time and have been tested in their adequacy to educate the human heart
- are reasonably challenging and inspiring to our students according to their age and sex,
According to their age, our students read great books from the Greek and Roman world (such as Homer, Virgil and Sophocles), universal literature (Dante, Cervantes, Victor Hugo, Dumas, Dostoievskj, Tolstoi, Manzoni, Sienkiewicz…), with a special emphasis on the American and British literature (W. Shakespeare, J. Austen, Ch. Dickens, R. L. Stevenson, M. Shelley, R. H. Benson, T. S. Eliot, J.R.R. Tolkien, G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis; M. Twain, W. Cather, H. Lee, H. Melville, J. Steinbeck, F. Fitzgerald, F. O’Connor, J. London, H. W. Longfellow, W. Whitman…).
Our selection of readings includes also contemporary authors, as well as books that integrate literature and history. Some of the books read by our students are:
First Grade - Piety
Fairy Tales and Stories, Hans Christian Andersen
The Classic Treasury of Aesop’s Fables
The Eagle and the Farmer (from the Aesop’s Fables)
Second Grade - Truthfulness
The Adventures of Pinocchio, Carlo Collodi (read aloud)
The Bears on Hemlock Mountain, by Alice Dalgliesh
Third Grade - Liberality
A lion to guard us, by Claude Robert Bulla
The Boxcar Children, by Gertrude Chandler Warner
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis
The Happy Hollisters, by Jerry West
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Fourth Grade - Conviviality
Ben and Me, by Robert Lawson Little
The Last Archer, by S.D. Smith
Prince Caspian, by C.S. Lewis
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, by Jules Verne
Farmer Boy, by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Fifth Grade - Fortitude
The voyage of the dawn treader, by C.S. Lewis
Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl
Johnny Tremain, by Esther Hoskins Forbes
The Five Children and It, by E. Nesbit
Treasure Island, by R. L. Stevenson
Black Ships before Troy: The Story of the Iliad
Sixth Grade - Concord
Tales from the Odyssey, Part 1 and 2, by Mary Pope Osborne
A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle
Momo, by Michael Ende
The Father Brown Reader: Stories from G. K. Chesterton
The Golden Fleece, by Padraic Colum
Gods, Heroes, and Men of Ancient Greece, by W.H. D. Rouse
A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
Selected Tales from Shakespeare, by Charles and Mary Lamb
Seventh Grade - Charity
Twelfth Night, by William Shakespeare
The Hobbit, by Tolkien
Michael Strogoff: The Courier of the Czar, by J. Verne
White Fang, by J. London
The Paul Street Boys, by F. Molnar
Animal Farm, by George Orwell
Poetry & Short Stories for the Logic Stage, 19th and 20th century, published by Memoria Press – the school will provide students with excerpts from this anthology.
Eighth Grade - Chastity
Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare
The Return of the King, by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Pearl, by John Steinbeck
The Iliad, by Homer
The Little Prince, A. de Saint-Exupery
The Old Man and the Sea, by E. Hemingway
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
The Golden Thread (St. Ignatius of Loyola) by Louis De Wohl