November 2026 Monthly Newsletter
November 2, 2026
This post is a blog archive copy of Build Your Library’s November 2026 Monthly Newsletter. If you missed the email, subscribe to our mailing list here. [Scheduled to be sent by 11/2/26 9:00 AM EST] [November 2, 2026 ] – Welcome to this month’s Video Newsletter! If you subscribed, you should have gotten our regular monthly email newsletter in your inbox. However, you can now watch the video highlights and read the full details below, or view the BYL November 2026 Video Newsletter on Facebook.
Hey everybody, it’s Emily from Build Your Library! If you are going to skim the beginning, here are the main topics in this month’s newsletter:
- Shop Our “Black November” Holiday Sale!
- Build Your Library Updates and New Products
- Build Your Library Reviews and Testimonials
- November Bookish Holidays
- 2026 Build Your Library Reading Challenge
- History Book By Book!
- “Tea with Emily” Instagram Live Stream
- Build Your Library Support
Now that I have your attention, I have the details on those items and more. Monthly Newsletter
“But there is always a November space after the leaves have fallen when she felt it was almost indecent to intrude on the woods…for their glory terrestrial had departed and their glory celestial of spirit and purity and whiteness had not yet come upon them.”
― Anne of Windy Poplars
Hello November! The air is crisp, the leaves are falling and the end of the year is quickly approaching!
Shop Our “Black November” Holiday Sale!
To kick off the 2026 holiday season (perhaps a bit early, but who doesn’t need a little cheer just now?), we’re having a sale you won’t want to miss!
No lines, No waiting at BuildYourLibrary.com! All from the comfort of your couch or cozy chair!
You can take 20% off of all our products during our “Black November” month-long Holiday Sale. Our sale runs from November 1 – 30, encompassing Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the entire month of November. This includes all of our digital full-year programs, unit studies, Lit Bites and more!
Just use the code ACORN at checkout to take 20% off your order!
Build Your Library Updates and New Products
To answer when the next level update will be ready, we have compiled our projected schedule into a post for easy reference. We will periodically update this section as we make progress or change our tentative schedule. We are not currently working on any level or unit updates.
My current work in progress is a high school-level Health elective! I’m aiming to have it up for sale in Spring 2027!
If you survived the Cannibalism unit, then you are ready to jump into the
next unit in our Morbid Curiosities series: Morbid Curiosities unit study – Death, Grief, and the Afterlife! In this 9-week unit, you will learn the science and anthropology, and even the geography of death and the way we humans have learned to cope with it! We’ll travel the world looking for the Good Death, learn about what happens to your body after you donate it to science, explore how science has tried to study what happens to our consciousness after death, and travel America learning history via cemeteries!
And of course, I’ve included some literature so good, it’s to die for! I had so much fun with this unit – it was one of my favorites from our year of Morbid! I was always the kid who asked too many questions about death, and writing this unit fed something in my soul. The Morbid Curiosities: Death, Grief, and the Afterlife unit study uses eight books and covers anthropology, cultural geography, history, science, and literature. ************************************************************************************* 
We have a brand-new middle-grade Lit Bite! Lit Bite: A Sky Full of Song. As the pogroms rage across the Russian Empire, Shoshana’s family finds escape and safety by starting over in America. They travel to North Dakota and begin a homesteading adventure on the prairie. But America is so very different from their village back in Ukraine, and Shoshana must decide if it’s better to fit in or embrace her Jewish culture.
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Be sure to check out our newest unit study! This would also be a great option for summer learning!
In our increasingly online society, critical thinking and media literacy are among the most important skills we can equip our children with. I have chosen a handful of high-quality nonfiction and fiction titles to help you and your children better understand and navigate the news and social media.
As always, I’ve included a literature component to help contextualize these topics for you and your family. Follow Max in the Operation Kinderspion duology as he learns the truth about the Nazis and finds himself becoming a British spy during World War II. You’ll also read Feed, the award-winning YA dystopia that depicts a world where everyone has a chip in their brain that feeds them a constant stream of media.
This unit is scheduled to be completed in eight weeks; however, the timeline is flexible and can be extended or condensed. If you want to spread it out over a longer period, take 2–3 lessons per week instead of daily. This unit is geared toward middle and high school students. I recommend it for ages 11+ because of the content and activities.
Build Your Library Reviews and Testimonials
We have always needed to improve at keeping up with compiling reviews and testimonials. Over the past 12-plus years, we have gotten a few here and there, but we really should get on top of them. We would love to hear about your experience with Build Your Library! Your review could be as short as a few sentences or as long as you’d like. Google reviews are a significant factor in SEO algorithms. We are told it is as significant as ~1/3 of the equation. With that said… We would appreciate it if you could click the link below and show your support by leaving us a Google review, a Facebook Review, or a testimonial for our website. Our growth has been focused on customer interactions and building long-standing relationships. Thank you all for everything and for making it so easy to love what we do.
November Bookish Holidays
November is another huge month for bookish holidays! Both National Authors Day and National Family Literacy Day are on November 1st. The first Saturday of the month (Nov 7) is Book Lovers Day. We also have National Nonfiction Day (Nov 6), I Love to Write Day (Nov 15), High Five a Librarian Day (Nov 18), and the third full week of November is National Young Readers Week and National Book Award Week. It’s also Non-fiction November all month long!
As far as literary birthdays go, there are a whole bunch in November! We have M.T. Anderson on (November 4, 1968), Bram Stoker (Nov 8, 1847), Neal Shusterman (November 12, 1962), Robert Louis Stevenson (Nov 13, 1850), Margaret Atwood (November 18, 1939), Ruta Sepetys (November 19, 1967), C.S. Lewis (November 29, 1898), Louisa May Alcott (November 29, 1832), and Madeleine L’Engle Camp (Nov 29, 1918).
History of Thanksgiving Unit Study
We’ve all heard the story – the Pilgrims[] sailed to America on the Mayflower and landed on Plymouth Rock. After a rough start, they were saved by the Indigenous people who then celebrated with a Thanksgiving feast… But how accurate is that tale? With this unit study, you and your child will explore the history surrounding Thanksgiving. Who were these pilgrims sailing to a new country? Did the Native Americans really save them? Why were they coming to America anyway? This unit will answer those questions with a major focus on the Indigenous people and their experiences during this time!
We also have a “Thanksgiving-themed” – Can You Teach Creativity? article from a few years back. This was a fun and interesting twist on an old holiday decoration project.
Collab with Soul Sparklettes Glitterbombers!
I’m excited to announce that we are collaborating with Soul Sparklettes Art! They have many excellent art projects that integrate seamlessly with Build Your Library. You can sign up for Glitterbombers membership through our affiliate link. Check the downloads on the Purchase Pages for levels 0-5 to see which projects align. The membership includes hundreds of art projects, videos, and resources designed for homeschoolers and art teachers BY a homeschooler and art teacher team. There are three completely DONE-FOR-YOU curricula: Global Art Hop, Elements & Principles (PEP), and a USA Curriculum. Everything is included when you join – there are no surprises and no waiting.
Glitterbombers HIGH is an art membership for grades 7–12. If you’re looking for art for your teen or tween, Glitterbombers HIGH might be the answer. From sketching to Procreate, Sculpey to watercolor painting, Glitterbombers HIGH is a video-based subscription where your teen or tween can explore different media and topics and develop their own art style. There’s even a monthly art technique class with a challenge and opportunity to earn prizes! Usually closed to new members, I have a special link for you to sign up now and still get in at the introductory price. Have younger kids? You’ll love Glitterbombers, designed for PreK-7th!
And in honor of our Morbid Curiosities, Part 1 – Cannibalism, the team at Giltterbombers has offered a free project! Free Download: Medical Illustration Skull-GB-Soul Sparklettes Art. This pen-and-pencil project is perfect for your preteens and teens. Combine art and science as you learn to sketch a skull like a medical illustrator! If you enjoyed that project, why not consider subscribing? You can choose between a monthly, 6-month, or full-year subscription! Sign Up for a Glitterbombers Subscription Here!
New Printing Partnership with Watson Family Press!
I’m excited to announce our partnership with Watson Family Press! If you are looking for a place to get your lesson plans printed, they have you covered! They are offering our customers a 10% discount using the code BYL at checkout! I love supporting small businesses, especially fellow secular homeschool family-run businesses! I hope you will check them out!
2026 Build Your Library Reading Challenge
Are you looking for a fun reading challenge for the whole family? Well, look no further! We had so much fun with challenges the past six years, so we’re continuing the tradition!
This year, we are reclaiming our whimsy! In 2026, we are having a very hygge and cozy year of reading! This year’s challenge encourages you to find your sense of whimsy and read books that make you feel happy and cozy. 2025 was a difficult year for many of us, so I wanted to start 2026 with a reading challenge to help me rediscover my love of reading!
I’m looking forward to a great year of reading, and I hope you will join me on our reading adventure!
We are 11 months into the challenge now – how is everyone doing? I’m getting there! I’ve completed 33/40 prompts. Just 7 more to go!
History Book by Book (HBBB)!
History Book By Book is our database of engaging, entertaining, and educational books on a range of historical topics. Whenever possible, we have cross-referenced topics, internally linked additional suggestions based on like subjects, and created helpful, categorized lists for you to search and browse. Hopefully, you will be able to glean a vast amount of information and find as many history-related books as you would ever want to find. We discussed it in depth during a recent Tea With Emily Livestream on Facebook. You can view the recording here.
As a long-time homeschooling parent and the author of literature-based homeschool curriculum, we designed HBBB to help:
(1) homeschooling parents looking for additional resources to read to their children,
(2) homeschooling parents looking for more historically based books to give their children to read themselves,
(3) any teen or adult looking for categorized historical reading material for their own enjoyment and knowledge.
Reading your way through history… one book at a time.
History Book By Book Main page
We have recently started to create some blog post articles on HBBB! You can check out our first couple on our HBBB Blog.
“Tea with Emily” Instagram Live Stream
We hope you all enjoyed our last “Tea with Emily” Instagram Live Stream. “Build Your Library/Back to Homes School Q&A“. If you missed it, you can find a recording by scrolling through our Instagram.
Our next Instagram livestream will be on Friday, December 18th, at 1 p.m. (EST). And you definitely don’t want to miss it!
I host a 30-60-minute Build Your Library homeschooling chat every other month. You can ask questions about homeschooling, the Build Your Library curriculum, book recommendations, and more. We will announce the date in advance, and you can submit any questions you would like to cover. Additionally, you can also ask questions during the interactive Livestream. Grab a mug of tea (or coffee) and cozy up with our virtual hangout!
Build Your Library Support
BYL Social Media Shout Out
We always include our Social Media “chicklets” at the bottom of our newsletters and on our website, but we wanted to ensure you follow us on our other platforms. The Build Your Library Facebook page is our go-to social media site, where we post frequently with excellent Amazon products and book recommendations we think you would like, along with all of our Read Aloud Book Club announcements, blog posts, full-year and unit-study product releases and updates, and more.
Our Build Your Library Instagram page regularly posts pictures and insider info about projects I’m currently working on or what I’m doing with my kids.
Although not 100% exclusively Build Your Library related, our has videos about books and homeschooling, but let’s be honest, it’s mostly books. If you want to see what I’m reading, join my Arrrgh Booked Book Club. Book club has wrapped for 2025, but we’ll be back in January! Be sure to watch my channel in December to hear what we’ll be reading the first 3 months of 2026! It’s going to be an amazing reading year!
You can also subscribe to our email list and browse our monthly newsletters.
Wrap Up
I hope you have a wonderful November full of cool breezes and beautiful foliage! I look forward to seeing what this new month brings!
“The house was very quiet, and the fog—we are in November now—pressed against the windows like an excluded ghost.”
― Howards End“In November, the earth is growing quiet. It is making its bed, a winter bed for flowers and small creatures. The bed is white and silent, and much life can hide beneath its blankets.”
― In November
If you are looking for some more inspiration, here are some articles you might find helpful:
We have well over 100 blog posts on various homeschooling and book-related topics if you want to browse for more. That is about all for this month. Again, please follow us on whatever social media you frequent. There will be periodic updates posted there as well, but we will try to keep everyone in the know wherever you are surfing! Thanks, and Happy Reading! Emily
See Also: October 2026 Monthly Newsletter
