As a mother of six, with four currently homeschooling in grades from elementary to high school, every few years one of them reaches a book that goes back on the shelf unread. Ivanhoe did it to us. We shelved it once, tried again, and this time I built what I wished had existed: a companion that explains the history before it trips you, keeps the cast straight, puts the story on a map, and leaves plenty of room to take notes.

It worked. So I made it properly, and then I made another.

Each companion is written for the reader, not the parent: background to share before a chapter, questions worth arguing about after, vocabulary that doesn’t interrupt the story, and timelines and activities that make a novel feel like a place you’ve been. They come from a Charlotte Mason home, but they’re built for any student, classroom, or book club that wants company through a long book.

All the text is my own. The character portraits and scene illustrations were generated with Midjourney and art-directed by me, so that everything in a set looks like it belongs together. I say that plainly because I’d want to know.

The Lady Rowena is a small side project, — with a nod to the novel that started this endeavor — from a small farm in North Carolina, one book at a time.

If there’s a classic you’d like to see next, let me know.