I'm an artsy-crafty person. My granddaughter is an artsy-crafty person. (Gee, I wonder where she got that from?) Her mother is more artsy than crafty. I guess you can understand why my eyes gravitated to a new book that just came into our library called: Super Simple Art to Wear -- Fun and Easy-to-Make Crafts for Kids by Karen Latchana Kenney. Illustrated by photographer Colleen Dolphin and something called Shutterstock. Edina, MN: ABDO Publishing Co., 2010. Available now.
This is part of the Super Simple Crafts series from the Super Sandcastle imprint at ABDO Publishing. (Hmmmm, a name change. It used to be called ABDO and Daughters, a name I loved!)
The fact that it is heavily illustrated with color photographs just begins the attraction for this craft book. Other pluses are the fact that the lettering is NOT huge. Huge lettering implies the book is for Kindergarten students. This is only a smidge larger than regular typeface -- just perfect for first and second graders.
And the sentences are short, but not babyish. Words that the author or publisher thought might be new or hard to understand are in boldface and explanations can be found in the Glossary at the back.
The directions are not only stated in words, they are also illustrated with step-by-step photographs. Very handy. It really helps to see what your project is supposed to look like at various stages in its production.
It is assumed that an adult is supervising these crafts and a HAND symbol indicates the places where an adult's help might be needed.
Decorate a ponytail holder or hairclip. Paint your shoelaces. Customize your t-shirt. Create a glitter bracelet or a skinny braided belt. All sorts of neat/ USEFUL crafts you can wear the minute you are done making them.
Even my 10-year-old isn't too old for the appeal of these crafts. (gotta go buy one of these books for her.)
What are Super SandCastle books? (quote from book)
They are "created by a team of professional educators, reading specialist, and content developers around five essential components -- phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, text comprehension, and fluency -- to assist young readers as they develop reading skills and strategies and increase their general knowledge." There's more, but you can read it all on the verso page in the books.
No where does it say that these books are FUN.
And yet, they certainly look fun do do.
Other titles in the series are:
Super Simple Clay Projects
Super Simple Glass Jar Art
Super Simple Jewelry
Super Simple Magnets
Super Simple Masks
The ABDO website shows another bookcover from this set of books, so I had to go to Amazon.com to find a copy of this cover to decorate this blog post. Nope, NO IMAGE AVAILABLE. Too bad. Go to the publisher's site to see the cover of the Magnet craft book in this series.
Other people writing Nonfiction Monday book reviews are listed at the blog, Lost Between the Pages.
Enjoy. -wendieO
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