Making Books Trd

Using this book and easily available materials, children will learn how to:
Design, lay out and shape books Use lettering, stencils, and collage Sew and bind books Make scrolls and zigzag books Create novelty books

By adapting the techniques used in book manufacturing, Making Books enables children to give their own bookmaking projects a truly professional finish.

Grade 3-6-- Featuring bold, full-color photographs of a variety of handmade books from rag publications to scrolls to ``TV books,'' this appears to be a simple introduction to the book arts. It offers instructions for sewing and binding, pop-ups, designing, printing, and lettering. Pictures of finished and in-process projects are meant to bolster minimal and often sketchy instructions. However, the text is oversimplified, with confusing results, and the photographs and drawings do not consistently offer a step-by-step approach. ``Secure the ends tightly,'' reads one instruction, without describing how this should be accomplished. It implies an unrealistic expectation as to the level of knowledge and/or skills of the intended audience. Other techniques, such as marbling paper and push-and-pull flaps, are dispatched in paragraphs so vague as to be almost meaningless. Joan Irvine's How to Make Pop-Ups (Morrow, 1987) offers lucid explanations of several of the techniques presented here. --Susan H. Patron, Los Angeles Public Library
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.