St. Augustine Academy Press

St. Augustine Academy Press is a small Catholic publisher that has spent two decades reprinting out-of-print Catholic primers, readers, biographies, and histories from the first half of the twentieth century. The catalog is narrow, the production is unfussy, and the audience is precise.

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

At a glance

Method	Classical, literature-based
Worldview	Christian-Catholic (traditional and Novus Ordo)
Grades	K-12
Formats	Print (trade paperback)
Cost tier	Standard
Parent intensity	3
ESA-common	Yes (where religious materials are permitted)
Accredited	No
Established	2004
Website	staugustineacademypress.com

Our scoreboard (1-5)

Criterion	Score	One-line reason
Academic rigor	4	Mid-20th-century Catholic schoolbook standards; substantively serious
Ease of teaching	3	Books are books; lesson planning falls to the parent
Content quality	5	Faithful reprints of strong original texts; production is plain but solid
Flexibility	5	Pure source materials; works with any Catholic homeschool plan
Value for money	4	Trade paperback prices reasonable; no consumables
Worldview scope	2	Specifically Catholic; not adaptable to non-Catholic use
Visual/design	3	Faithful to original mid-century formatting; no modernization
Support resources	2	Catalog only; no parent guides or scope-and-sequence

Who the publisher is

St. Augustine Academy Press was founded in 2004 by Lisa Bergman, a Catholic homeschool parent who, like many of her peers in the late 1990s and early 2000s, found that the books her own grandparents had used in Catholic parochial schools were largely out of print. Catholic primers from the 1920s through the 1950s, works that had taught generations of Catholic schoolchildren reading, history, biography, and basic doctrine, had quietly disappeared from the commercial book market by the time the contemporary Catholic homeschool movement began looking for them.

Bergman's response was practical: scan, reset, and reprint. St. Augustine Academy Press's catalog has grown over two decades to include several dozen reprints of mid-20th-century Catholic textbooks, biographies, and primers, plus the Loyola Classics series and a handful of original publications that complement the reprints. The press is small, family-operated, and explicitly oriented toward the traditional and Novus Ordo Catholic homeschool community.

This places St. Augustine Academy Press in a niche distinct from the major Catholic homeschool publishers. Seton Home Study School sells a complete graded curriculum. Mother of Divine Grace sells a Laura Berquist syllabus and consultation service. Catholic Heritage Curricula writes its own textbooks. St. Augustine Academy Press writes almost nothing original; it makes available the source texts that the other Catholic homeschool publishers and consultants frequently reference. Families build their own curriculum around these reprints, often within a Charlotte Mason, classical, or Mother of Divine Grace-style framework.

The core pedagogy

St. Augustine Academy Press is not, properly speaking, a curriculum. It is a trade-paperback publisher of Catholic source materials. Pedagogy enters the picture only insofar as the original texts being reprinted carry a pedagogy of their own. Most of those originals are early-20th-century Catholic schoolbooks written in the classical-traditional Catholic mode that prevailed before Vatican II, straightforward expository prose, memorization, copywork, recitation, and integration of doctrinal content with secular subjects.

The catalog falls into roughly four categories. Primers and early readers, titles like the Catholic National Readers and The Way of the Cross primer, teach phonics and reading through Catholic content rather than secular content. Biographies and saints' lives, substantial reprints of Catholic biographical literature from the 1920s-1950s, often originally written for upper-elementary or middle-school readers. Histories. Catholic-perspective histories of the Church, of nations, and of major historical periods, written in the mid-century English Catholic style of Hilaire Belloc and his successors. The Loyola Classics series, classical literature with Catholic editorial apparatus, notes, and introductions oriented toward Catholic high-school and homeschool use.

Signature mechanics: (1) Faithful reproduction, the original layouts, illustrations, and typefaces are largely preserved, sometimes reset for clarity. (2) No teacher's manuals, most titles ship as the bare reprint, with no parent guide, no comprehension questions, no quizzes; the parent is expected to use the book as the original Catholic-school teacher would have. (3) Affordable trade paperback pricing, most titles run $10-$25, deliberately kept cheap for accessibility. (4) Integration with broader Catholic homeschool plans, the reprints are meant to be plugged into a larger curriculum, often Mother of Divine Grace or a parent-built classical Catholic plan.

A day in the life

A fifth-grader using St. Augustine Academy Press materials within a Mother of Divine Grace syllabus might start the morning's reading block with twenty minutes of a saint's biography, the parent reads aloud, the child follows along, and they discuss the chapter when finished. Later, history is studied through a Catholic-perspective American history reprint, with the child reading a chapter independently and the parent asking three or four discussion questions afterward. There is no workbook, no quiz, no answer key. The book provides the content; the parent provides the structure.

For a high-school student working through the Loyola Classics series, the rhythm is closer to college humanities. The student reads the assigned text, perhaps a Graham Greene novel with the Loyola Classics editorial apparatus, independently, then writes a brief response or discusses it with the parent. The press itself does not provide assignments; the parent or the broader Catholic homeschool plan does.

What they do exceptionally well

Preservation of out-of-print Catholic source material. This is the press's defining contribution. Books that were genuinely difficult or impossible to find in the early 2000s. Catholic primers, mid-century saint biographies, Belloc-era Catholic histories, are now affordable trade paperbacks. For Catholic homeschool families committed to working with primary Catholic source materials rather than modern secular adaptations, St. Augustine Academy Press is structurally important to the ecosystem.

Editorial fidelity. Bergman's editorial choice has been to reproduce the originals rather than modernize them. Mid-century formatting, language registers, and theological framings are preserved. Families who want the source as written get the source as written; those who want a modern adaptation should look elsewhere.

Affordability. Trade paperback prices ($10-$25 per title) keep the catalog accessible to families building their own curriculum from many small books rather than buying a single expensive complete program. A family can build a substantial Catholic literature shelf for the cost of a single textbook from a major publisher.

Compatibility with classical and Charlotte Mason approaches. Because the press supplies books rather than programs, the materials work well with any literature-based or living-books-driven approach. Charlotte Mason families, classical Catholic families, and unschooling-leaning Catholic families all use the catalog without modification.

What they do poorly

No curriculum scaffolding. This is the structural trade-off of being a reprint house. Parents using St. Augustine Academy Press materials get the books and nothing else. There are no scope-and-sequence documents, no lesson plans, no parent guides, no comprehension questions, and no quizzes. Families that need scaffolding pair the reprints with Mother of Divine Grace syllabi, Memoria Press lesson plans, or their own planning effort.

Mid-century language registers can challenge modern readers. The original texts were written for children growing up in a Catholic-cultural milieu that no longer exists; vocabulary, references, and theological assumptions occasionally require parent context-setting. This is workable, even valuable, but it is real work.

Narrow worldview scope. The catalog is specifically Catholic and explicitly preserves pre-Vatican II and mid-century theological framing. Non-Catholic families will find substantial portions of the material doctrinally specific in ways that do not adapt well, and even within Catholic families, those uncomfortable with traditional or pre-Vatican II framing may find some titles uncomfortable.

Limited high-school continuation. While the Loyola Classics series provides high-school-appropriate literature, the press does not offer a complete high-school history or science scope. Families using St. Augustine Academy Press for elementary and middle grades typically transition to other Catholic publishers (Memoria Press, Seton, MODG) for high school content beyond literature.

Who it fits / who it doesn't

• Pick St. Augustine Academy Press if: you are a Catholic homeschool family building a custom or Mother of Divine Grace-style classical curriculum and want primary source materials; you appreciate mid-20th-century Catholic schoolbooks for their content and tone; you prefer trade paperback affordability over textbook polish; you do not need a teacher's manual or pre-built lesson plans.

• Skip St. Augustine Academy Press if: you want a complete curriculum with daily lesson plans (choose Seton Home Study instead); you are not Catholic or are uncomfortable with pre-Vatican II framing; you want modernized language and presentation; you prefer all-in-one consumer-grade materials over a build-your-own approach; you need accreditation or transcript credit through the publisher.

Cost honest assessment

St. Augustine Academy Press titles typically run $10-$25 per book as of April 2026, with most reprints clustering in the $12-$18 range. The catalog includes several dozen titles; a family building a complete year's worth of literature, history, biography, and primary readers from this catalog might spend $100-$250 across a school year, depending on how many titles they integrate.

Compared to Seton Home Study School (roughly $700-$1,200 for a complete graded year with consumables and grading) and Memoria Press's Catholic curriculum (roughly $400-$800 for a complete grade kit), St. Augustine Academy Press is far cheaper but provides no curriculum infrastructure. Families pairing the reprints with a Mother of Divine Grace syllabus typically pay $400-$700 for the syllabus and consultation, plus $150-$250 in St. Augustine Academy Press books across the year.

A realistic all-in cost for a family using St. Augustine Academy Press materials substantially across one student's school year: $150-$350 for the books, plus whatever curriculum scaffolding the family layers on top.

ESA eligibility notes

St. Augustine Academy Press materials are typically eligible on most state ESA marketplaces where religious materials are permitted, including Arizona's ClassWallet, Florida's Step Up For Students MyScholarShop, Iowa's Student First Scholarship, and Arkansas's LEARNS Act. Some marketplaces require individual SKU listing; smaller publishers like St. Augustine Academy Press are sometimes listed under a parent vendor account or require manual reimbursement workflows. Families should verify specific title eligibility before placing the order. Catholic-specific content places these materials in the religious-materials category, which a few state ESA programs restrict.

Alternatives

• Seton Home Study School, a family would choose Seton over St. Augustine Academy Press because Seton offers a complete graded Catholic curriculum with lesson plans, grading, and accreditation, rather than primary source books that require parent assembly.
• Memoria Press Catholic Curriculum, a family would choose Memoria Press over St. Augustine Academy Press because Memoria publishes its own classical Catholic textbooks and lesson plans, providing a more structured classical-Catholic experience while still preserving source-based reading.
• Mother of Divine Grace, a family would choose Mother of Divine Grace over St. Augustine Academy Press because MODG provides the classical Catholic plan, Laura Berquist's syllabus and consultation, into which St. Augustine Academy Press books frequently get plugged; many families use both together.

How we verified this

Our editorial team reviewed the St. Augustine Academy Press catalog, the About page describing the press's editorial mission, and sample title pages and reading excerpts available through the publisher's site. We cross-referenced against the broader Catholic homeschool publisher ecosystem (Seton, Memoria Press, Mother of Divine Grace) and Cathy Duffy Reviews where applicable. Prices and program availability verified April 2026.