I have been making a list of all the literature/living book resource books listing living books to read for all ages and topics recommended by ladies on the forum. I got our taxes back a while ago and was ordering the things that I wanted/needed for the new year. Several of these were these recommended books.
I was on Amazon and ordered “Who Should We Then Read?” vol 1 and vol 2 by Jan Bloom – noticing that one dealer was BooksBloom and was located in MO. I ordered from that dealer and thought it might be the author. A few minutes later I received an email from the author who asked if I had noticed we are from the same town inviting me to pickup the books at her house, and she would refund my shipping money.
I went over to her house – talk about instant gratification on order fulfillment (lol) – and got to meet Jan Bloom…she was very gracious and interesting! (I found another person who has a map above the kitchen table and has bookcases all over the house…literally…and I was drooling over the one bookcase full of titles I could read…all books that are recommended here and ohhhh…how about their inventory…I volunteered to get lost in there – LOL) She and her husband travel to the conventions and sell the OOP / living books we all want. She generousy offered to help find my list of hard to find books if I would email it to her…how cool is that?? I no longer feel so alone in my CM venture here.
I asked if I could share her advice on obtaining these books and she was happy to agree. Most of us talk about ordering from Amazon, but she suggested that we use the search engine http://used.addall.com/ to find these books. She says that it searches over 40 places, and suggested that we would find much better prices for our books. Just wanted to share that since it may save us all money and a headache! She made my weekend! LOL
Jan is WONDERFUL isn’t she? She caught me talking to another friend wandering through her shelves at a convention and taught me how to find the books myself, years ago, but I always drop by to see her and chat anyway when she comes to Iowa. She’s found several things for me too.
I LOVE Jan and Gary! How cool that you’re in the same town. 🙂 She called me last year because she was on her way from Jacksonville after Christy’s event to Ohio. She knew I had lots of duplicates from my library. I met her on our way to violin at a little gas station. She got lots of books for her sale and I got more rare books I didn’t have. Great trade! BTW, if you see her again, ask her about their breakfast at Daisy Duke’s Diner in East TN. LOLOL!!!
Robin, we did actually talk about you and Emily Cottrell. I only know you from what we have read/posted on the forum, but I was telling her how much I’d enjoy a library like yours. She lit all up and said that she was great friends with you all. I also mentioned Michelle, but not by name – I should have realized that you knew her too.
Anyway, she was lots of fun and I was thinking of asking her to do a class either for my HS mom friends or the church ladies about choosing appropriate literature. She has some good ideas in the front of her books, which are pretty amazing. A brief biography of the author, and complete lists of their works put into general age groups for appropriate reading. She has hundreds of authors. I am so excited to explore GOOD authors I have never read (and lots I’ve never heard of), but which she says stand up to Biblical standards.
Are the Jan Bloom books sort of along the same lines of Honey for a Child’s Heart, and the one by Catherine Levison (I think it’s called Literary Education…) Yes?
Their only similarity really is that they are both books of book lists. Where most book list books have a list of good BOOKS, Jan has a list of great AUTHORS. She gives a short bio of each author, then has a list of every book they wrote. Also in Vol. 1 she has listed the titles included in the great series for children such as Landmark, Signature, We Were There, Piper, North Star, etc. There are something like 150 authors per volume! For myself as a homeschool librarian, her books have been my most valuable resource. My copies are highlighted of volumes I own and for a very long time were attached to my right arm as I attempted to memorize the authors so I could quickly locate them at a book sale. In the frenzy of the moment there is no time to be looking things up.
Also (and I don’t mean to keep slapping my blog posts on here…but in case it’s helpful for those who don’t know) I recently did a post on book lists, including Jan’s. Don’t miss the resource at the bottom where I include a quote of the standard for children’s books in that volume. My how times have changed…