CREATING MOSAICS

Chatty text and drab illustrations reduce the potential audience for this simple, well-organized introduction to making many kinds of mosaics. The approach is more literal than imaginative and when imaginative it tends to be solipsistic (""ideas are imagination"") but the practical advice is good enough to serve as a guide. Starting with an extended section on paper mosaics (where some differentiation between mosaic and collage would have been useful), it proceeds to consider cereal, candy, seeds and egg-shells as other ""soft"" materials. Then on to the ""hard"" materials applied with grout--glass, tile and broken dishes, with several ""safety first"" injunctions. For a medium in which color is the prime component, the turquoise and black illustrations are a handicap; for a medium which succeeds on design, the attention to depiction is a little unfortunate. It's not a book that creative art teachers will want, but kids can use it themselves.