Making Books by Paul Johnson

I got this book out of the library as I was desperate to make a simple book for my own drawings, and I didn't get it back from my 7 year old for some time.  As Johnson says, in comparison to other written and art work, when a child creates a book of their own they become more engaged and more likely to successfully complete the task.

Johnson includes 32 projects for children to make books.  In the introduction there is a table of projects, their range and text level skills for teachers, some basic books forms and a section on planning, drafting, storyboards, materials, safety and tips for success.  At the very end is a template for a personal record book which enables the child to record their thoughts about the book making process.

Each project is clearly marked with an age range next to the title, the projects increase in age range from the first (age 5-6) to last (age 10-11).  There is an 'aim' box giving the book and project form and a clear indication of preparation requirements and time needed for the project.  Instructions to make each book are in clear diagrams, and there are pictures and text on how to use the project.  At the end is a section on more ideas.

A really well constructed deeply inspirational book that doesn't require any specialist equipment.

Painting on Stones by Genevieve Ploquin

On the plus side this book is great for inspiration and good for the templates and techniques sections, giving advice on transferring designs, varnishing and materials.  However, many of the designs use more than one stone, which may be fine for you but when I paint a stone I just want to be able to carry it around alone, not stick it together with another one.

X-Men First Class by Jeff Parker, Roger Cruz and Kevin Nowlan

Really good collection of stories by Jeff Parker, Roger Cruz and Kevin Nowlan returning to the early days of the X-Men's time at Xavier's School for Gifted Children, when Jean Gray was still Marvel Girl, fighting alongside Iceman, Angel, Cyclops and Beast with appearances from Scarlet Witch, Thor, Quicksilver and Dr Strange.  The collection covers both some high energy action with great artwork and the delicacy of relationships developing between the young mutants.

Painting Animals on Stones by Lin Wellford

A brilliant book with full colour illustrations and black and white diagrams showing you how to use acrylics to paint ladybirds, penguins, field mice, rabbits, fawns, owls, foals, squirrels, kittens and animal families onto rock.  The author introduces the book with a section on  where to find and how to select the best stones and about supplies and equipment.  Each animal project has clear pictures of equipment needed, the best kind of rock to use and simple step by step illustrations and photographs, my 7 year old is able to follow them.

Whispers from a Lebanese Kitchen by Nouha Taouk


Taouk's family are Lebanese exiles living in Australia and they connect with their lost heritage through stories and cookery which weave together as the women cook the dishes in this well laid out colourful book.

In a way it resembles a normal cookery book, with sections in meal order: starters and mezze, salads, meat dishes, vegetable dishes, fish dishes , dessert and coffee but they are interspersed with and in presentation influenced by the stories, the memories the family have of their brief time in Lebanon and lives in Australia, of family gatherings and the food used to celebrate religious occasions.

Some ingredients are quite specialized but these days you can shop online and don't necessarily need the good network of Lebanese grocers, bakers and butchers that surround Taouk's family.

Art and Propaganda by Toby Clark


Clark writes a comprehensive coverage of art propaganda in chronological form.

The first chapter charts propaganda's beginnings in suffrage, the avant garde and revolution, chapter 2 covers Fascism, chapter 3 Communism, chapter 4 Wartime, and chapter 5 up to the present day, protest art, Vietnam, AIDS and feminism.

In some ways this is a really good book, covering the art of propaganda through its most potent forms in Nazi Germany, wartime Britain and communist USSR to the present day, but I felt it was also a bit lacking.  As a book about art I would have lot more commentary on how the pieces of art worked, explanation of symbolism, interpretation of the use of light, colour etc.  Clark just gives historical background to each piece which is useful but incomplete.

The last chapter fails to address street art, a major form of protest.  Also, there is not enough coverage of the monumental statuary and architecture of fascism and communism.  Could have been a much better book.

World Textiles by John Gillow and Bryan Sentance

Gillow and Sentence have brought their wealth of experience and learning to create a wonderful well organised book that describes in well written words, full colour photographs and line drawings, pretty much every kind of textile art there is.


They divide the contents into 8 sections: materials, non-loom textiles, loom-woven textiles, dyes, sewing, embroidery and embellishment, then each section then is divided further into individual double page spreads covering single subject areas. There is some repetition given cross overs but very little and the book is worked chronologically, so if a subject is covered in a previous section it is only touched on and referred back to.

What I really loved was that this book isn't just pictures, the authors skillfully write a precis of every technique which is easy to understand and concise, not easy given just how complex each subject is and they are giving each only a double page spread.

Snowdrops by AD Miller

Nick is a corporate lawyer, an English ex-pat living in Moscow, working for his parent banking company to faciliate the building of an oil supply tanker in Murmansk. One day on the Metro he saves a girl, Masha, from being robbed of her handbag and becomes friendly with her and her cousin Katya, friendship deepening into a sexual relationship. Masha introduces Nick to her aunt who lives in a big old flat in central Moscow and the narrative unfolds, in which Nick is surrounded by deceit and corruption and becomes gently implicit.

The descriptions of Russian culture and lifestyle are beguiling and well written, the causal corruption in which any transaction has a backhander price, in which the dreams of altruistic communisim have given way to an animalistic survival of fittest. The symbiotic relationship between the narrative, the extremity of Russian winter and the nature of the Russian psyche are nicely put together. There is an overall air of menace, not just in central narrative but in the shadowy presence of gangsters, oligarchs, women as currency, mistresess, strippers, prostitutes and the sense that all is defined by price and not human compassion.

However, it feels like not much happens in the book as it is very clear where things are going from the outset and that it can't end well.

The framing of the book as a story that Nick is telling his future wife and seeking absolution is interesting but a little irritating

A final note, the cover is brilliant. One way up it reads 'snowdrops', a macabre play on words between a beautiful flower symbolising the triumph of spring over winter, and Russian slang for something far more sinister, but the other way up it looks like cyrillic writing. A nice touch.

One of Our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde
(Thursday Next Book 6)

Thursday Next rides again.  But this isn't the real world Thursday Next, this is the fictional version as contained within Next's own memoirs and she freely admits to having none of Next's spark and (not Lola) va va voom.  She is trying to make the Thursday Next novels as nice a place as possible, difficult given that Fforde's books are mostly remaindered and read only by a handful of people, she doesn't have the companionship of her other half Landon and two children Tuesday and Friday and the rest of the people playing her cast are difficult at best.  Then the written Next meets a stranger on a tram whilst on her way to investigate the spontaneous destruction of an unread book that was in transit to be broken up, saves a clockwork robot called Sprockett from stoning and the book slowly moves into top gear, car chases, twists and turns, great metafictional references and a good basic story about a person becoming more than they thought they were written to be.

The Water Children by Anne Berry

This book is as much about water as about the characters, about the contrast between the summer drought of 1976 and four people bound, ironically, to the element of water so lacking during that long hot summer.

In The Water Children four children are scarred each in a different way in connection with water, through drowning, falling through ice and of water as a refuge from an unbearable present.  Naomi, renamed Mara, is the eldest, an orphan raised in terrible deprivation and punishment, coming of age in the Summer of Love, deeply disturbed and desperate for love.  Owen bears the weight of a childhood mistake which cost him the affection of his mother, Catherine is unloved by her narcissistic mother and seeks to escape, and Sean feels trapped by his small farm Irish upbringing.  All come into each other's orbit in London during the summer of 1975 and the life of a new child - Catherine and Sean's baby Bria - becomes the price of redemption for all four.

But more than that, this is the first fast read I have come across for a while that is beautifully and heart-rendingly written with passages of description that are just wonderful. In some ways, the narrative is quite simple, but it's Berry's talent that makes this book so beautiful

London Unlocked by Emily Kerr and Joshua Perry

I have the Edinburgh guidebook from this series and was so impressed I got the London one too for our next visit at Easter.  I wasn't disappointed.  This colourful book is amazing, it's both about children's activities and written for children themselves. 

For six different areas of London, beginning with Central and moving outwards, you are invited to do something, for instance, Stare a TRex in the Eye ... at the Natural History Museum. Each activity is given a double page spread which gives fascinating facts about the activity, top tips, jokes, other things to include in your visit, photo opportunities, and a 5 star sticker scoring section with gold stars included at the back of the book. In the bottom right of each page is address information including the closest tube station, opening dates and times, a coding system showing whether the place has a shop, cafe, is good for wet weather, and whether there are height restrictions and a pricing indicator from FREE through £(cheap as chips), and ££ (cheap as fish and chips) to £££ (not cheap at all). At the end of the book are a set of top fives (top five places to shop for toys and sweets, markets, run around etc) and a parent page. 

Completely recommended, everything you need for a holiday that allows you to stay within your budget and whilst giving you full details of all the major attractions also includes the more obscure delights of the capital city.

Ultimate Knitting Bible by Sharon Brant

This is almost the perfect knitting reference book, everything well illustrated with easy to use diagrams and photographs.  The writing style is gentle and direct, never didactic or berating, presenting alternatives in an easy to read style.  It covers all the information you need both to get started and for more complicated kitting techniques, including:

• equipment 
• yarns including how to read a wool ball band
• a variety of cast ons and offs 
• knit and purl stitch including variations such as continentals and left handed knitting
• simple stitches such as moss and rib
• edge stitches
• joining in yarn
• shaping, increases, decreases, sizing, corners, pleats, tucks, bias and socks
• reading patterns and charts, abbreviations and terminology
• texture, including cables, crossed stitches, twists, bobbles and lace knitting
• colour, including stripes, intarsia, charts and fair isle
• embellishments, including beading, sequins, fringing, cords, pom poms, felting, crochet and embroidery
• finishing techniques, including grafting, seams, bands, hems, facings, buttonholes, buttons, zips and linings
• troubleshooting, including dropped stitches, unravelling work, uneven knitting, mending, correcting colour and cables
• designing and adapting patterns, including calculating stitches and rows, graphing, altering and designing
• glossary and index

My only slight complaint would be the size, it's quite big and I would like a little portable version, maybe spiral bound, but I do understand that big and clear would also be a distinct advantage.

The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht

Set in an unnamed country in the Balkans, the story is narrated by Natalia, a doctor taking medical care over the border to an orphanage, to a village which was once part of her own country, where her surname and accent mark her as the enemy.  She receives a call from her grandmother telling her of the death of her grandfather and the book spins off into an intricately constructed web of stories about her grandfather's past and that of her war scarred country, of the death that stalks every tale, of the tiny parochial village his grandfather was raised in.  There are many unspokens, children are orphaned and raised by grandparents without explanation, war has marched across the countryside so many times bodies are buried in vineyards and mines hidden in the beauty of forests.  Not least of all, every anecdote is achingly beautifully written and captivating, myth, superstition and the power of story plaited together.