Look What You Can Make with Newspapers, Magazines, and Greeting Cards (Craft)
Grade 2-4-Craft Sticks uses Popsicle or craft sticks, tongue  depressors, paper, paint, fabric, and household odds and ends to  make toys and games, decorative items, doll furniture, frames,  wreaths, and more. Newspapers uses papier-m ch  techniques,  decoupage, and cutting skills to make banks, clothed dolls,  boxes, signs and cards, mobiles, etc. A switch-plate cover and a  marble maze game are two of the more unusual ideas. Bottles,  which requires potentially dangerous cutting procedures, only  gives a safety warning in the introduction: "If you are having  trouble cutting a container, ask for adult help." No warnings  appear with individual projects, which combine plastic-container  recyclables with paper, ribbon, fabric, buttons, and beads to  make such items as bracelets, bookends, a desk aquarium,  puppets, a playing-card holder, and decorative containers  galore. Although there are no tables of contents, each book has  a title and subject index. For the most part, project directions  are given in paragraph form, not in numbered steps, and they  might be a little difficult for primary students to follow  without adult help. The large, full-color photos of the finished  products are a helpful aspect of these books, sometimes making  the written directions secondary. Worthy purchases for libraries  that need more crafts books.Lynda Ritterman, Atco Elementary  School, Waterford, NJCopyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.