The Red Headed Hostess

The Red Headed Hostess is an LDS scripture-study publisher built around the Come Follow Me weekly curriculum. It is not a general homeschool program; it is a specialist Bible strand written for Latter-day Saint families who follow the Church's home-centered study calendar.

Last updated: 2026-04-24 · Every Homeschool Editorial Team

At a glance

Method	Literature-based / subject-specialist
Worldview	LDS (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints)
Grades	K-12 (Primary and Youth product lines)
Formats	Print guidebooks, digital subscription, workbooks, companion app
Cost tier	Standard
Parent intensity	3
ESA-common	No
Accredited	No
Established	2010
Website	theredheadedhostess.com

Our scoreboard (1-5)

Criterion	Score	One-line reason
Academic rigor	3	Strong scripture coverage for study purposes; not designed as academic Bible scholarship
Ease of teaching	4	Weekly structure mirrors the Church's Come Follow Me calendar; parents open and go
Content quality	4	Dense verse-by-verse commentary and well-designed study pages
Flexibility	3	Tied to the Come Follow Me four-year cycle; pulling it out of that rhythm is awkward
Value for money	3	Membership is recurring; print guidebooks priced in line with LDS trade publishing
Worldview scope	1	Narrow: specifically written from and for LDS scripture study
Visual/design	4	Clean, warm layouts; print guidebooks sold through Deseret Book are well-produced
Support resources	4	Membership includes app access, family activities, and Primary/Youth splits

Who the publisher is

The Red Headed Hostess was founded in 2010 by Shannon Foster, a former seminary teacher for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Foster began the site as a teaching blog for seminary instructors and grew it into a publishing imprint as the Church's Come Follow Me home-centered curriculum moved scripture study decisively into the household in 2019. The business now operates primarily as a subscription platform (RHH Lifted Membership) with physical guidebooks sold exclusively through Deseret Book, the LDS-owned retail chain.

The scale is modest by mainstream homeschool standards but substantial within its niche. Membership is marketed to individual families and to ward-based study groups, and the product mix. Primary pages for children under twelve, Youth pages for teens, and adult study pages, tracks the age divisions the Church itself uses in its meeting houses. The audience is overwhelmingly active Latter-day Saint families who already use Come Follow Me as the family's Sunday-evening and mid-week scripture rhythm.

Theologically, The Red Headed Hostess is unambiguously LDS. The standard works cited are the King James Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price; commentary references General Conference addresses and Church magazines; language about the Restoration, priesthood, and modern revelation is used without explanation because the audience already shares it. Per Every Homeschool's taxonomy, the publisher is classified lds, not christian-*.

The core pedagogy

The product is a scripture-study aid, not a full Bible curriculum in the Protestant textbook sense. Each week of the Come Follow Me reading assignment is matched with a study guide for each age band. A parent opens that week's Primary pages for the eight-year-old, the Youth pages for the fifteen-year-old, and the adult pages for herself; the household reads the assigned passages and works through the guided questions, verse-by-verse notes, and reflection prompts as a group.

The method is narration-adjacent in practice. Students read an assigned chapter, then use The Red Headed Hostess worksheets to track themes, mark cross-references, and summarize in their own words. The commentary pages written by Foster and other seminary teachers give the parent a prepared overview, roughly what a seminary lesson plan would contain, without requiring the parent to build one from scratch.

Signature mechanics: (1) Weekly Kit format, every week is its own downloadable or print bundle, aligned to the Come Follow Me calendar published by the Church; (2) Three age tracks. Primary (ages 3-11), Youth (ages 12-18), and adult pages, so the family reads the same scripture block but works through developmentally appropriate prompts; (3) Verse-by-verse commentary pages, these are the flagship asset for parents who want preparation material before teaching; (4) Hands-on teaching activities for Primary, aimed at physical engagement during short attention spans.

A day in the life

A Latter-day Saint family with an eight-year-old and a fifteen-year-old typically uses the curriculum on Monday Family Home Evening and once or twice during the week. Monday evening: the parent prints that week's Primary page and Youth page (or pulls them up on the app), opens the Book of Mormon or Old Testament to the assigned block, and works through the reading with the family, roughly thirty to forty minutes including the hands-on Primary activity. Midweek study: each child does ten to fifteen minutes of personal scripture reading with their individual guidebook, answering the verse-by-verse questions. Sunday: the family reviews what they learned before attending sacrament meeting.

Families who do not already follow the Come Follow Me calendar will find the product awkward to use. The entire design assumes the reader is synced with the Church's annual reading schedule, which rotates through the Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants on a four-year cycle. Using the material outside that cycle requires the parent to pull weeks out of context.

What they do exceptionally well

Synchronization with Come Follow Me. The Church publishes the weekly reading block; The Red Headed Hostess publishes the study pages that match. Families who already use the Church's home-centered curriculum get a turn-key add-on that removes the weekly preparation burden. This is the publisher's clearest value proposition and its hardest-to-replicate moat.

Age-differentiated materials on the same weekly text. Most scripture-study publishers assume a single reader level. The Red Headed Hostess builds three parallel tracks. Primary, Youth, adult, from the same weekly passage, so a household can study together and still have materials pitched at each child's stage. This is genuinely useful for multi-age families and difficult to find elsewhere within LDS publishing.

Verse-by-verse commentary written by seminary teachers. Foster and her collaborators are former or current Church seminary and institute instructors, which means the commentary is aligned with the Church Educational System's standard interpretations rather than idiosyncratic takes. Parents get preparation material that tracks with what their children will hear in Sunday meetings.

Deseret Book distribution for print. Physical guidebooks are stocked by Deseret Book, which gives families a single retail point of trust. The membership handles digital; Deseret handles print.

What they do poorly

Calendar dependency. The tight link to the Come Follow Me calendar is a strength for active LDS families and a weakness for anyone else. A family that wants to study the Book of Mormon straight through on their own schedule will find themselves fighting the product's structure. This is by design, not a defect, but it limits the audience sharply.

Thin coverage outside the scripture-study use case. The Red Headed Hostess is not a Bible curriculum in the sense that Veritas Press Bible or Simply Charlotte Mason Bible are, there is no multi-year scope and sequence, no memory work program, no doctrinal summary lessons independent of the weekly passage. Families who want that kind of structured Bible course will need to supplement or look elsewhere.

Subscription model friction. The RHH Lifted Membership is recurring. Families who prefer one-time purchases and permanent ownership of printed materials end up buying the Deseret Book print editions, which means running two parallel purchase paths. The membership-versus-print split is workable but not elegant.

Who it fits / who it doesn't

• Pick The Red Headed Hostess if: your family actively follows the LDS Come Follow Me reading calendar; you want age-differentiated study pages without writing them yourself; you have children in both Primary and Youth stages and want material pitched at each; you're a Sunday-School teacher or seminary leader building supplemental handouts; you already shop at Deseret Book for other LDS materials.

• Skip The Red Headed Hostess if: you are not LDS or do not use the Come Follow Me calendar; you want a traditional Bible scope-and-sequence curriculum independent of a church calendar; you prefer Protestant or Catholic Bible resources and would need to theologically edit LDS-specific commentary out of every lesson; you want a one-time purchase rather than a membership.

Cost honest assessment

The RHH Lifted Membership is priced as a recurring subscription that varies by tier; as of April 2026 the publisher lists monthly and annual options on the membership page. Print guidebooks are sold through Deseret Book at standard LDS-trade pricing, typically in the $20-$40 range per volume for full-year guides and lower for smaller study booklets.

Compared to the broader Bible-curriculum market, The Red Headed Hostess is mid-priced: more expensive than a single-volume Protestant Bible study aid like Grapevine Studies ($20-$35 per book), less expensive than a full classical Bible sequence like Veritas Press Bible ($150+ per year). For a family already committed to Come Follow Me, the preparation time it replaces is worth the subscription for most households.

An all-in annual cost for a family of four (two Primary, one Youth, one adult) running the full membership plus two Deseret print guidebooks lands in the $150-$250 range as of April 2026.

ESA eligibility notes

ESA coverage for The Red Headed Hostess is limited. LDS-identified scripture-study materials face restrictions on most state ESA marketplaces that exclude explicitly religious content from funding; even on the more permissive marketplaces, this publisher is not a high-volume directory presence. Families in states with open-enrollment ESAs (such as Arizona's ESA and Florida's Family Empowerment Scholarship) may find the print guidebooks orderable through a general bookseller like Deseret Book if the marketplace accepts third-party retailer receipts. ESA-funded families should verify eligibility with their specific state program before assuming coverage.

Alternatives

• Seminary Preparation Resources, a family would pick the Church's own seminary materials over The Red Headed Hostess because they are free and come directly from the Church Educational System, at the cost of requiring more parental preparation.
• Deseret Book's other Come Follow Me guides, a family would pick a different Come Follow Me publisher from the Deseret catalog if they prefer a specific author's commentary style, a devotional rather than worksheet format, or a one-time purchase model.
• Grapevine Studies, a non-LDS family seeking age-differentiated Bible study materials with a stick-figure drawing method would pick Grapevine as a Protestant analog in a similar price range.

How we verified this

Our editorial team reviewed The Red Headed Hostess's About page and membership descriptions, product listings at Deseret Book, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Come Follow Me curriculum page and seminary materials. Prices and membership structure verified April 2026.