It is a sad day in the Library, folks.
The dearly departed Make It With Paper
Make It With Paper is not going to make it. It’s had numerous stays in the Book Hospital, has been glued and taped to within an inch of its life, and we’re pulling the plug.
It’s a great book – it was published in 1992 and has virtually every imaginable paper craft in it, from making homemade paper to fancy gift wrapping ideas. The origami section, which is extensive at nearly 80 pages, has nice simple instructions and tons of ideas. Origami is very popular with our students, and Make It With Paper was probably one of the most popular books on the topic (hence the fatal injuries – many young hands over the past 20 years have taken a toll).
Sadly, this book is no longer in print, and as we could not locate a copy in good condition, it was time to make up for its demise with the purchase of new origami manuals.
I was just expecting the typical cranes-and-boxes-and-frogs variety, but just behold the selection!
Popular this will be.
The Origami Yoda series by Tom Angleberger was definitely a sleeper hit last year so it’s fun to see that he’s written the forward for this book. In retrospect, only buying one copy of this was very silly of me. It will be on hold forever.
Make your own toys – why not?
This one has instructions for a nodding dog! That is pretty cool. And likely less creepy than actual nodding dogs.
BRAINNNNNNS!!! PAPER BRAINNNNNNS!!!!
Zombies are the new vampires, so it makes sense that you should be able to create your own host of the undead from simple paper. (FYI – giant squids are the new zombies – you heard it here first.) These creations are surprisingly complex, and involve quite a bit of assembly, but they are very clever and look like a lot of fun!
Origami for the zoologically minded
This book has really lovely animals in it – from cranes and rabbits to sea otters and lobsters – and includes a set of animal printed paper, for total biolgical accuracy. Being a penguin fanatic, I attempted to make a penguin using the specially-printed paper.
It was not successful.
This is what it should look like…
… this is as far as I got 
The real test of an origami book is how well an amateur can follow the directions with a satisfactory result. Sadly, the penguin instructions became somewhat vague at about step 6 and I gave up. However, lots of boys with a bit of experience and much more patience will love this book.
Come and check out these new origami books – you can even use the special paper at the back!
