Library Bound Books for Homeschool

Library and Educational Services LLC

Homeschool Review Crew

 

 

Books are life!  Well, at least here at our house they seem to be.  We have so many books we don’t have enough shelves, but that doesn’t stop us from getting more!  Recently we’ve added some fun library bound books to our homeschool.  These are courtesy of a review through The Homeschool Review Crew and Library and Educational Services LLC.  It was so much fun shopping for new books for our homeschool!

We received $73.88 to spend on library bound books to use within our homeschool.  A few stipulations were that we needed to include one Lifehouse Theatre CD, one Who Was title and then spend the rest on some of the reinforced hardcover library binding non-fiction books. I chose three sets of library bound books to add to our library plus some fun titles that were on sale. 

So much fun!

About the Company

Library and Educational Services LLC has been selling library bound books to Christian schools, churches, and more for over 40 years. Now they want to give homeschoolers a chance to get these wonderful long-lasting library bound books.  I’m excited!  I know our family goes through lots of books from the time when toddlers can be rough on them or that phase where kids don’t think they need to put them back on the bookshelves.  

Their prices are 30%-70% or more off publishers prices.  This is the pricing they are going to offer to homeschoolers too.  We enjoyed browsing and let me tell you they have a great clearance and sale section in addition to their normally priced goodness.  

I really appreciate that they only carry Biblically based or things that align with a Christian worldview.  This means I don’t have to go through and make sure of what my children are going to be reading.  I can just know that it’s okay and hand it over with no worries.  

Make sure you check them out when you are ready to buy some new books. 

I loved the opportunity to browse the site and added about ten dollars to my total of our own money because they had some fiction kids books that were only a quarter each.  Could not pass those up!  So here is what we got!  

So Many Books!

Lifehouse Theatre CD

 

For our CD from Lifehouse Theatre we chose Pride and Prejudice. Okay, I chose it.  Yes.  I made my boys listen to it.  Does that qualify me as a mean mom or just a mom who wants them to know classic literature?  I’ll go with promoting classical literature in an easier to digest audio format.  Sounds so much better that way!

 

 

This CD is just over 70 minutes long.  Most of the voices are not familiar to me but I like the sound of them!  I was pleasantly surprised at how well it kept my children’s attention.  Sometimes if the storyline isn’t the most rivetting they tend to wander and not listen as well.  This time everyone listened even though I know the boys were not rivetted to the tale.  We’ve never listened to a Lifehouse publication before but I think it was good and we will probably listen to more of them in the future. 

 

 

I thought it stayed pretty true to the book without just reading the book word for word. My thoughts are that it is a children’s edition of the book versus the complete word for word book though.  Not a bad thing just something to note.  I liked it though!

Our Who Was Choice

The Who Was series is a great one so we didn’t just choose one book.  I chose Who Was Franklin Roosevelt? and Who Was Eleanor Roosevelt? as our purchased copies because we are studying World War II as part of our history this year and I thought they’d be nice additions.  Plus I just think Eleanor was a classy lady and wanted to make sure we included her when we study her husband.

 

 

As I mentioned above I went with the time period versus a specific person we wanted to study.  If I was choosing a person who was my favorite from the Who Was list I would have chosen differently.  But these were great for what I need on my shelf this year.

Let’s chat just a bit about the Who Was book series.  They are not my favorite books.  Just have to be honest here.  There is nothing I can stick my finger on to pinpoint why.  Maybe it’s just the covers on them.  They hit me as a bit disrespectful in their bobblehead like graphics.  That said my kids love reading them and they learn quite a bit about the people within them so I’m okay with them reading them.  Just not my favorite series. 

Who Was Additions

I also got a bundle of Who Was books that were on sale.  You might be giving me a bit of a raised eye brow here.  Yes, I just said they’re not my favorite.  And yes then in the next sentence I said I bought more.  Yes yes, I did. My kids like them.  They voluntarily read them and they learn from reading them.  So while I might not consider them living books I do consider them worth reading.

 

 

These are all referencing the Revolutionary War and our history as a country.  I made sure that all the books we chose to purchase had to do with a theme.  This year our theme is our country and how it was formed for part of the kids plus more of a later US history for the others.  I wanted to make sure we have plenty of books to grab for free reading that compliments our studies.

 

 

I liked that they include What is The Declaration and What is the Constitution.  Those are some key documents we should be reading more about.  Also, there are pictures inside of those two books that include more information.  

Spotlight on American History

Okay, so the library bound books that we got are three hardback sets. 

 

 

The first set is a Spotlight on American History.  It contains eleven hardback books that cover American history during the Revolutionary War.  Some are about certain events, some cover people, but all cover our history during that time period.

 

 

I was loving getting this set to add to our homeschool.  It would not surprise me to have this set staying around for years.  They are well made and the covers are very sturdy.  These are going to make good history books to add when we study the Revolutionary War time period again.  And I was pleasantly surprised to see some areas that aren’t commonly covered like who our allies were during the time period.

 

 

I would say they’re geared towards elementary readers.  You might be able to use them for junior high years or middle school but high school students are going to need something a little meatier.

American Symbols

 

 

The next hardback library bound books set that we chose was that of American symbols.  This is four hardback books talking about some of our primary American symbols like the Bald Eagle and Mount Rushmore.  These are fun little reads to add to the shelf. 

Again these are more geared towards elementary students.  I’m putting them on our history shelf but keeping them in the US studies section.  A few of them could go towards other periods of history but I’m not going to separate them out.

History and Heritage

 

 

The last set I got with our review allowance is another eleven book set all-around history and heritage.  This thing is beefy!  There is a lot of information within this set.  I would gear it towards middle school and high school.  Definitely, something you could use when doing a report or essays on certain subjects.  

 

 

Inside the books, you’re going to get glimpses of famous people and places. 

 

 

This set is literally massive.  It covers The Old West years.  Again it’s a great library bound books set.  It seems really thick and full.  I’m not seeing it getting torn up easily which is a great thing for me.

 

 

Literally so much information within these books!  I can see us picking out of them as we go through our history lessons.  I’m definitely going to be using them to supplement stuff and I’m sure the kids are just going to be reading them as well.  My kids love history and the Old West is currently my boys favorite time period.  Even the toddler is obsessed with Davy Crockett!

So the primary use this year for the History and Heritage set is going to be free reading on topics that the boys love.  The section on Davy Crockett and the Alamo will be read aloud to the toddler hundreds of times I guarantee it!

Our Choice Books

Here are the books I chose to add to our purchase and pay for on our own.  These are some amazing deals here.  My kids love Gilbert Morris books and this trilogy is just the thing my oldest son will love and devour.  I paid for these with my own money on top of the review allowance.  In fact, we might have gone over the review allowance a tiny smidge with the sets but you can’t really break those up.  Anyway, it doesn’t matter too much as the amount of books I was able to get is insane for the price.

 

 

My kids are already asking me to place another book order through this company because they’re loving them so much!  These are all fiction that I added.  We do love reading some good Christian fiction books.  The RAF series I’ve already been told I need to find all the other books that come first because it’s such a good one.  The other three, all Gilbert Morris, numbers in the series that we did not already have though we do have some of them. 

 

 

Our Thoughts

We are in love!  The quality is much better than what I’m accustomed to when buying books.  We got a huge two boxfuls of books and for the amount spent that is amazing.  These are quality books chock full of information.  It can be hard to find good non-fiction books and I am pleased with the selection that Library and Educational Services LLC has to offer.  I can definitely see us becoming repeat buyers.  

Their fiction section is smaller than their non-fiction section so be aware of that.  But they do still have some good ones in there.  Their Who Was series section is HUGE and they do have several different bundles available.  I didn’t even know half those titles existed.  

Learn More

To learn more about Library and Educational Services LLC and what they have to offer make sure to visit their website.  But also make sure you go read through some of the blog posts linked up on the Main Post on the Homeschool Review Crew blog.  We all received the same instructions but got such a wide variety of great library bound books for our homeschools! 

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