Bookmaking With Kids

Among the oddments that Lisa, the librarian at Flynn Elementary, offered kids as book-
making materials during the Flynn 500 earlier this month were lots and lots of long disused flashcards. They were a decent size, maybe 5 x 7 inches; each featured a goofy but recognizable picture but no words.

Lisa’s idea was to let kids choose two cards as their front and back covers, and in between, concoct a story that made use of both pictures. It proved an inspired plan, and scores of kids put the cards to use as story starters.

The book in the spotlight here (a simple, two-hole punch binding held together with a pipe cleaner) has a raccoon on the front and a violin on the back, and the story connecting the two images is a wonderful little parable about sticking with what you love.

Click here to see a round-up of this year’s Flynn 500 posts.

Look at these pads of Post-It notes I found!

I think they’d be fabulous, here and there, in the pages of a hand-
made book. I can see them as recur-
ring elements in a story, contribut-
ing a goofy design twist and serving up bits of dialog.

Watch for future posts in this series to see how these finds were actually used.

NOTE: This post is one in an irregular series about training your eye to see opportunities for bookmaking, opportunities that may be triggered both by “stuff” that catches your eye and by books that kids read. I’ve tagged these posts with the “From Idea to Book” category, and you can get a list of all such posts to date by clicking here.

Among preschool teachers in a recent bookmaking workshop, pictures of yummy foods and intriguing animals were the favorite starting point for turning empty plastic boxes into collage books.

The youngest children can simply fold a precut sheet of paper in half to make book pages, then cut out magazine pictures and glue them inside. Older chil-
dren can fold a longer, precut sheet into a four-panel accordion. Yes, cutting out pictures and gluing them on the pages will likely make a mess! But the terrific work-out for fine-motor skills kids experience with this project is more important.

This post is actually part of the Looking With the Eyes of a Bookmaker series, but suddenly I got tired of seeing that title! What kind of book would you make with this box?

Visit next week to see ideas from preschool teachers.

Cheerfully ignoring my suggestions for ways to start a story inside this drumstick book (see last week’s post), my “writingest” student decided to tell a story from the turkey’s point of view! So much more original than my story-starters, and, of course, rather more gruesome (as befits a 2nd grader).

Here are the first two pages of his book. I think it’s pretty understandable. But just in case: “traned” means “turned,” “hached” is “hatched” and “bucher” means “butcher.”

Another student, who’s turned her last three projects into joke books, busied herself making up turkey jokes. After I suggested she think about other meanings for the word “side”—mashed potatoes, beans, candied yams, and the like—she adapted an old standard:

Instead of popping this yummy-looking greeting card into the mail, I’ve decided to use it as the cover of a drumstick-shaped book. The challenge for my students: Conjure—and solve—the mystery of the missing bite.

The straight line you see on the left side of the drumstick becomes the book’s spine. You can download a drumstick template that fits on letter-sized paper by clicking here. Have kids fold the template in half (hamburger style) with the dashed line on the fold, then cut through both thicknesses on the solid line. Next, kids can tuck some folded paper inside, then staple or sew those pages through the spine. Kids can trim the pages to the shape of the drumstick (OK for older kids) or leave them as a rectangle extending beyond the drumstick (easier for little kids).

Consider a brainstorming session with kids about what art materials and techniques will produce the crunchiest, most realistic, most succulent looking drumstick!

And please let me know—in the Comments or by email—if your kids produce any fabulous culinary mysteries or come up with an artistic invention!

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