Who Should We Then Read? – fun experience!

Here is a link to Robin’s post she is refering to:

http://www.childrenslegacylibrary.blogspot.com/2014/02/my-list-of-book-lists.html

Jan mentioned something else that I appreciate more the further I go in this book buying journey – she said that she choose the spiral binding and the size so that you can put her books right in your purse. 😉 You can tell she homeschooled her children and scoured the booksales with uncooperative book lists, can’t you? =)

The biographies are helpful AND it is fun to “get to know” an author as a person – what they did, what some of their experiences were, how they believed, even about their families make them real. Then they really start to become “friends.” Knowing the name of a “safe” author is important because if you know the name, the world opens up when you are in a book-buying time. 

As for how Jan’s books are organized:

There is a section containing such things as the acknowledgements, the table of contents, introduction, where to find great books, the care and repair of books, a guide to recourses about authors, biographical resources and alphabetical author information (including the page number of each individual author biography).

Then it moves into a history overview and teaches you about choosing books based on the sources, the stories and the secrets (what really mattered?), history storytellers, with a short list of excellent writers. She does the same thing with biographies and fiction.

On page 29 she lists reading level suggestions by author for beginning readers to advanced readers and includes lists of series for each, including a variety of genres. VERY COOL since that allows you to find books to interest the picky reader.

From page 36 to page 263, Jan writes about 140+ authors. First she lists everything they wrote and published, listing it in series or other categories such as juvenile fiction, poetry, biography, etc. At the end of the list she does a brief biography of the author. 

From page 264-340, she lists the books in series such as Childhood of Famous Americans, Landmark, American Heritage, Cornerstones of Freedom, Newberry Award, and so many more. 

At the end of page 340, she has her bibliography.

This book is a real treasure! But Jan didn’t stop there – she wrote “Who Should We Then Read? Volume 2” as well. Volume 2 contains 155 new authors and book lists. What a great way to expand some reading horizons! FUN! =)

So like Robin said, most books about books are lists of specific books to read, but Jan’s is about authors and the lists of the many books they wrote.

Here is a link to her first volume:

http://www.amazon.com/Who-Should-We-Then-Read/dp/0970962819/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1394637542&sr=8-1&keywords=who+shall+we+then+read%3F

And here is a link to the second volume:

http://www.amazon.com/Who-Should-We-Then-Read/dp/0970962851/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1394637655&sr=1-1&keywords=who+should+we+then+read%3F+volume+2