Remake It!

Gr 3 Up—This is a fairly extensive recycled-crafts book with 95 projects arranged in six general categories. The crafts are arranged by material, e.g., paper, plastic, fabric, metal, glass, and a miscellaneous category. Everything readers would expect to find in this type of book is here: rolled-paper beads, decorated jars, and bottle-top magnets. Threadgould includes a few clever original ideas, like eyeglass picture frames and a CD case photo spinner. Each activity is marked with an expected completion time and skill level—easy, medium, or hard. The easy ones can be accomplished by grade-school children, while the more difficult projects are better suited for teens, and many require the use of tools such as tin snips or a hammer. Threadgould's instructions are thorough but wordy, so grade-school children may have a hard time wading through them without adult assistance. Each craft has one color photograph of the completed product, but the step-by-step instructions are illustrated with line drawings. Unfortunately, these drawings are not always positioned on the page near the written instructions, so crafters must look back and forth across the page, or even across a page turn. Laurie Goldrich Wolf's Recyclo-Gami (Running Pr., 2011) has fewer ideas, but the instructions are a little easier to follow. This book is not a bad choice for those looking for a more extensive collection of recycled craft ideas.—Donna Cardon, Provo City Library, UT