Customer Reviews

Making Books That Fly, Fold, Wrap, Hide, Pop Up, Twist, And Turn: Books for Kids to Make

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

 

 

As stated in the title, this is a book for kids but has some pretty neat ideas. The book begins with an introduction touching on the question "what is a book?" with lots to think about. Such as pg 6 - "Can you call it a book if it's big enough to walk through? How about a book that is small enough to be carried in a little pouch that hangs from your belt? Have you ever seen a book made up of five kites, each with part of a poem written on it? Or a book that looks like a window shade, with each page working like one of the slats?..."

Then there are sections on How to Use this Book, Tools and Materials, Setting Up a Book Center, Writing Your Message, and Illustrating. The book project sections are: * Books that Carry Messages across Space and Time (accordian fold with pockets, stabbounds, coptic binding and foldouts, origami, and others). * Books that Celebrate and Mark Things (Japanese ledger binding, scroll books, "pamphlet-bound notebook in a polaire", "pop-ups in a glue book"). * Books that Save Words, Ideas and Pictures ("accordian-folded, with small pamphlet-bound inserts", "Tetratetraflexagon journal that unfolds in two mysterious ways", ring binding, secret compartments and others). * Books that Help Us Think and Make Sense of Experiences (Dos a Dos books, accordians cut into three sections, hardcover/three signature book, stab binding with split pages, lotus book).

Interspersed throughout are water color pics of neat old books and various book history bits. Super reading.

Though written for kids, the book doesn't talk down to readers but rather encourages them to go ahead and try making a book. I'm really looking forward to putting together some of the projects, which are not in the least juvenile.

Oh, did I mention the book is hardcover with a vinyl spine so you can see through it to the mull and stitching? Neato!

I used several ideas in this book to teach an afterschool bookmaking class for K-3rd graders. The books are eye-catching and pretty simple to make, although I did a bit of prep work for the kids.

It was really wonderful to see how much the children loved their projects. They were extremely creative and innovative too, every child made the book their own by doing something interesting or different with the materials provided. This is in stark contrast to several adult bookmaking classes I've taken, where the adult students want to recreate the teacher's book EXACTLY.

Anyway, I highly recommend this book to anyone is willing to spend some time making books with kids. Children older than 4th grade MIGHT be able to use this book independently, depending on their experience and motivation.

Regardless, I think this book is wonderful for showing kids just how fascinating and rewarding it can be to make their very own books.

While this book is written for young people, these projects can easily translate into adult projects. The book includes some fundamental book making but also takes you, step-by-step, to more complex design, stitchery and concepts as you go from chapter to chapter. The coptic stitch is woven into pages 28-30 so subtly that you may not immediately realize its intricacy. What is fascinating about Books that Fly is its imagination and introduction to the wonder of books. It takes the reader on a magic tour of books.

I recently purchased this book and have found it to be a terrific resource for teaching children how to make beautiful books.The instructions and diagrams are easy to follow and very clear. My favourite is the T.V. book. The children in my class had a blast making these books.

As a teacher, this book is a great resource for ideas to show students how to write and product there own work of literature. We used the book as the basis for a "Make a Book Night" sponsored by our PTA. Students and their parents attended a night of book making and story writing choosing from one of the many book ideas presented in the book. It was a great experience for one and all. If you love books, like to write poetry, stories or journals I highly recommend purchasing

Making Books That Fly, Fold, Wrap, Hide, Pop Up, Twist & Turn: Books for Kids to Make

This book was written for younger readers, but I will find it very useful for my rubberstamping projects. I was glad to find easy to follow instructions for many kinds of books all in one book. Now I won't have to search through my magazines and printouts to find instructions for a project.

The books are fun and easy to do, but the results are impressive.

I enjoy arts and crafts and have ever since I was a kid. My mother was a working artist with an MA in studio arts and art education, and she had a genius for running a three ring circus in her own art classes. At any one time she could have up to two or three projects going for anything from K-12, college classes, private lessons, and special ed groups. Although she didn't actually teach me "art" her example, and encouragement, and the availability of almost every conceivable art material at home gave me an opportunity to try almost every medium. Ms Diehn is probably one of the few authors on arts and crafts that even remotely compares with my mother's influence.

Making Books that Fly, Fold, Wrap, Hide, Pop Up, & Turn is a marvelous example of a how-to book that not only gives one ideas but encourages one to come up with them on ones own as well. It's exuberance also encourages the learner to "go ahead and try it!" It combines information on how to do it, with history on the evolution of books and book art. The author gives simple instructions that any person who can read can understand and illustrations that are understandable enough that the pre-literate individual may put the instructions to work with only a little help.

More than anything the author has instilled a sense that art is a process, a fun process; it is what artists do. Like most processes, art is also something one experiences; it's a feeling. Like my mother, she shows that there are no real "rules" about what makes something a work of art; when one gets right down to it, art is just as the old hackneyed phrase has it, "just what you like." There is probably nothing worse than an art teacher who disparages the creativity of the students in her charge. I have friends who refuse to do anything remotely artistic because they had an art teacher that "thought anything less than Rembrandt was a waste of time!" as one of my former roommates said. How sad. In Ms. Diehn I find an artist like my mother, who had a lovely collection of student art, someone who loves the process and is able to convey her passion to the reader.

I hope to make several of the ingenious little books Ms Diehn illustrates for Christmas gifts for my friends. We've all got pretty much all we want by way of material goods-and anything they might like and don't have I probably couldn't afford anyway!-so these charming books will permit me to give them something of sentimental value. We've shared a lot of years together and what better way to preserve the memories!

An impressive little art book.

This is a lot of fun for kids or adults. The instructions are step by step and are clearly written. They're also augmented by line drawing of how to do the folds and where to cut. Pictures of finished books are also shown so you can see how it should turn out. There are pictures of kids making these crafts throughout the book which makes it kid friendly. There are also ideas on themes for the books so it's a little more than just about the mechanics of folding but also ideas on content. The gypsy wagon for example has little cards that you put into each of the folds so she has you write a story in the cards first - by the end you have a really cool folding book that is interactive and tells a story. As I mentioned, this is great for kids of all ages (like me at 36 years young). I'm planning on making some booklets to incorporate into altered books and journals.

What a wonderful book! It brings alot to the imagination and really helps children learn to make their own books. It really helps bring a book to life and helps children understand that books do not always have to be paper with words written on them.

I bought this book for my daughter for Christmas. She is 10 years old and is forever making construction paper books (I have them all over my house).
From looking through this book, I know that she is going to love making all the projects that are listed in this book. I am sure that I will have a lot more books around my house but at least this will be creatively designed by my daughter!!