I am also a beginner at woodcarving, I have a book by Chris Pye, it's good. Beginner Carving something or other, they stock it at Woodcraft and it sounds like you have one local to you. Carve something, learn where your tools keep you from doing what you want to do and that is the next one to buy. I have botched numerous carvings by trying to force a tool to do something instead of using the right tool. The only other thing I can say as a beginner also is buy good tools, I tried to cut corners with my first tools and they were categorically garbage with something like 4.8 star reviews. I bought Pfeil at Woodcraft after that and they are night and day better. The Schaaf I bought first weren't even sharpenable by a beginner I don't think, several needed reshaped completely and that's probably out of reach for someone that doesn't know how they are supposed to work. I returned them with no issue after looking them over.
