Customer Reviews

Doodle Diary: Art Journaling for Girls

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Looking at the preview for this book, I didn't know what to expect; many books on journaling include some sort of materials section at the beginning, and I was looking for something more. Wanting to learn to doodle better myself, I ordered a copy and jumped for joy when it arrived.

When it came out of the package, I was surprised! It's a great size -- small enough to fit in a purse or backpack -- and is THICK.

Past the recommended materials, there are pages and pages of prompts, ideas, and collaged backgrounds for you to work on. The prompts are diverse, and many have "tips" for how you can expand and enhance your journaling. They range from ways to use materials to cutting "out a photo of a friend -- paste it on the page and start dooodling in the Mehndi style around it," to "What do I want to be? Happy, adventurous, fun? Either write these words or find them in magazines and paste them onto the page. Doodle around them."

The pages are great for girls just discovering who they are. There are bits for favorite jewelry, your favorite and least favorite classes, a school makeover, and "I can't wait to be an adult because..." But there are deeper prompts as well. Dawn Sokol has girls exploring who they are and want to be, what they value, who they look up to, what quotes guide them. Working through this doodle diary will help girls grow and foster strong self-esteem and figure out who they are.

If you're an adult, you, too, can work through this diary! Many of the prompts will take you back to childhood, where you can re-examine what you loved (and didn't love!) back then, bringing those school years into clear focus. And many are fun prompts -- Dawn has you exploring new materials and gives you tips on how to use them in different ways. Journal about an embarrassing moment, what you said today. Use junk mail or combine words. What is on your iPod? What inspires you?

'Doodle Diary: Art Journaling for Girls' is up there with Keri Smith's 'Wreck This Journal' for the pure creative genius of its writer; there is passion and fun in this book that you can't help but giggle with glee when you pick it up and start playing on its pages.

I'm an artist and journalling teacher - and this book has tickled me on both levels. The prompts are perfect jumping points for all sorts of creative thought and the pages are delightfully designed, yet not so perfect/prescious that they scare a child off from marking on them/journalling. I put it immediately on my journalling bibliography that I hand out to my student's parents - and based on the kids' reactions at today's class, it'll soon be in each of their backpacks! Furthermore, my daughter begged me to give her my copy. Solution? I bought another one!! Wonderful book, Dawn - and thank you!!

Who says that doodling has to be just for kids, or even just for girls? Dawn Sokol's new book, Doodle Diary is the perfect size book for your on the go art moments. It's fresh. It's colorful. It's inspiring. It's inexpensive. It's a fun little book that you can toss in your purse with a small handful of favorite pens and work on it while you are in line at the post office, at lunch, waiting for a movie to start, etc... I know what my nieces will be receiving for Christmas!

In the meantime, my copy is in my purse along with a tiny set of $2 gel pens from Dick Blick. Guess who's been having fun with art on the go? My plan is to use the book now as is and then cut it up later to reuse it later in my regular art journal!

Look at the size before ordering. I got this for a gift, and while it's cute and portable, it's small and expensive for the size. I had to add to the gift and ended up spending way more than I expected to make it look like a "bigger" gift. The pages are cute, but I can see them falling out of the spine after awhile of opening and doodling in the book as the binding is just the "glue in" style. I would return it but the return shipping will cost more than half the price of the actual book!

I purchased this book for an 11 year girl who I knew loves to doodle and write in a journal occasionally. She loved the gift! I have since asked her how she likes her new journal, her reply was that it was very fun and nice that they give you ideas of what to journal and make it fun to do. She also says how a lot of her friends are jealous and want one of their own. :) I call that a success! Its not easy now a days to please pre-teen kids with small simple gifts (its no IPod), I super happy with my purchase!

Doodle Diary is full of great prompts for those stuck moments when you just can't think of what you want to journal about. You can zip over and just open to a random page and follow the instructions however you interpret them at that moment. The book has prompts for a wide age range and a pretty diverse crowd. It is, however, primarily designed for girls who like pink, fluffy things. Girl1's crowd started turning away from that when they were around 9-10 years old. Girl2 loves the pinkness, but she's 5 and can't read the prompts by herself yet. That severely limits the ages that this book will naturally appeal to. This seems to come more from an editorial or even marketing position than what the author intended. The prompts are obviously well conceived and intended for a much larger audience.

Overall, I like the randomness, concept, and sheer volume of prompts.

I am put off by the overly "pink" motif and it is a bit pricey.

Four out of Five Stars makes this a great book to have in your collection.

This is a great solution for a diary for a young girl who doesn't like to write. My daughter loves having a place to think about her thoughts and feelings, but she would never just sit down and write or draw on her own. The diary features pages that prompt girls to think, draw, and write about their body, their friends, their school, movie reviews, crushes...just about everything you could think of. It's very colorful and artsy.

The book is more than anything a starting point for art journaling. I like the book design, the weight and feel of the pages, so pretty and inviting. "Doodle Diary" doesn't tell the whole story, because it's much more than a place to doodle. I like the simple way Dawn incorporates familiar art supplies and fresh journaling prompts. I like creative books that guide your imagination, sparking ideas and experiments along the way.

This would be a good present for a girl (only because it has a girly feel, not because boys cannot art journal), age 7+ (not just kids, anyone up for creative fun) because you can really make of it what you wish. Kids as young as 2nd grade and up through any age. I could see this as an on-going activity for a mother-daughter book club, parsed out through a handful of meetings. Or a surprise gift for a girl going on a long flight (along with some markers, etc.). When we travel, I like to bring along a few surprises for each of my daughters, to make the flights pass just a little faster.

Creative fun, excellent book.

I just got a copy and can't wait to share it with my daughter. We're often feel like creating together but then don't know quite what to do - and this is going to give us hours of delish creating. What looks like a deceptively simple book - like Keri Smith's - leads you deeper into the creative process and being a strong girl. Love it!

It's wonderful little (perfect size to carry around in the bag or a backpack) gem, meant to inspire artistic journaling in girls of any age. Short, fun prompts on every spread will give the much needed jolt of creativity to anybody who is willing to try their hand in this exciting contemporary art form. Some pages come with beautiful colorful backgrounds, and a few even have the drawings already started for you, but it doesn't feel stuffy or intimidating, on contrary, it makes you wanna grab your favorite pen and start doodling right along :)