Re-using and recycling can be productive. This timely how-to book offers instructions for 95 projects using old papers, plastic bags and containers, retired clothes and pieces of fabric, bits of metal, jars and jar lids and other finds from the junk pile. From scrap paper picture frames to a purse made from an old hardcover book, the environmentally conscious author provides a wide variety of projects for young crafters. There are bags and boxes and storage bins, planters and lampshades, bracelets and even a T-shirt rug. Organized into chapters by basic material, the projects are labeled easy, medium and hard, and the amount of time they might require is shown with one to three clock faces. Each finished product is clearly pictured. Instructions are presented like recipes, beginning with the necessary materials and equipment, and going on with step-by-step instructions and clearly drawn diagrams. Procedures range from simple paper folding to complex ones requiring hand sewing (an introduction shows basic stitchery), use of a glue gun, cutting difficult materials and very careful measurements. Occasionally the author suggests adult supervision. Like many “green” suggestions, some projects may use more energy than they save. Hot water and a dryer are used to felt old wool sweaters. A long period of hot ironing fuses plastic bags. Handy preteens and teens looking for new ideas for old stuff may find just what they need, but they’ll have to flip through—there’s no index. (Handicrafts. 10-16)
Pub Date: April 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4027-7194-1
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2011
Weaving together architectural, engineering and Native American history, Weitzman tells the fascinating story of how Mohawk Indian ironworkers helped construct the sprawling bridges and towering skyscrapers that dominate our urban landscape. The book begins with a brief but informative history of the Kanien'kéhaka—People of the Flint. Leaders in establishing the League of the Iroquois, a confederation of Indian nations in the New York region, Mohawks had a longstanding reputation for their sense of tight-knit community, attraction to danger and love for physical challenge, qualities that served them well when hired in the late 1800s to do the most arduous work in railroad and bridge construction. With the advent of the skyscraper, Mohawks possessing agility that seemed gravity-defying worked hundreds of feet above the ground. They were not immune to tragedy, and the author discusses in detail the collapse of the Québec Bridge that killed 31 Mohawk workers. Illustrated with black-and-white photographs that capture the daring spirit of these heroic workers, the concise, captivating account offers great insight into the little-known but considerable role Native Americans played in our architectural and engineering achievements. (glossary, bibliography, source notes, index) (Nonfiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-59643-162-1
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Flash Point/Roaring Brook
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2010
In a large, handsome format, Tarnowska offers six tales plus an abbreviated version of the frame story, retold in formal but contemporary language and sandwiched between a note on the Nights’ place in her childhood in Lebanon and a page of glossary and source notes. Rather than preserve the traditional embedded structure and cliffhanger cutoffs, she keeps each story discrete and tones down the sex and violence. This structure begs the question of why Shahriyar lets Shahrazade [sic] live if she tells each evening’s tale complete, but it serves to simplify the reading for those who want just one tale at a time. Only the opener, “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp,” is likely to be familiar to young readers; in others a prince learns to control a flying “Ebony Horse” by “twiddling” its ears, contending djinn argue whether “Prince Kamar el Zaman [or] Princess Boudour” is the more beautiful (the prince wins) and in a Cinderella tale a “Diamond Anklet” subs for the glass slipper. Hénaff’s stylized scenes of domed cityscapes and turbaned figures add properly whimsical visual notes to this short but animated gathering. (Folktales. 10-12)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-84686-122-2
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Barefoot Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2010
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