Handmade Books Program

Preparation

Step 1: Gather books about creating your own book, such as Aliki’s How a Book Is Made, Sandy Asher’s Where Do You Get Your Ideas? Helping Young Writers Begin, Donna Guthrie’s The Young Author’s Do-It-Yourself Book: How to Write, Illustrate and Produce Your Own Book, Marion Dane Bauer’s What’s Your Story? A Young Person’s Guide to Writing Fiction, or How to Make Pop-Ups by Joan Irvine.

Step 2: Create a sample book. You can make a book simply by folding pieces of plain paper over and stapling them or tying them together at the fold with yarn. Or you can put together colored sheets of paper with cardboard covers, hole-punch them, and tie them together with pipe cleaners. Or, if you’re more ambitious, you can follow the instructions at the end of this chapter to create your own blank book.

Step 3: Check Writing Box supplies. Make sure there are brass fasteners and hole punches, lanyards, string, ribbons, or yarn to tie pages together, and oak tag or cardboard for covers.

The Workshop

Step 1: Display different kinds of books, talk about how they are made, and describe their different sections (front cover, title, dedication, chapters, etc.).

Step 2: Show your own handmade book.

Step 3: Give the children paper, cover pieces, markers, crayons, and paper. Help them with taping, gluing, or tying. They may not have time to both make a book and write in it, so remind them that they can write in it anytime they like.

Step 4: Give a five-minute warning for cleanup. Remind writers when the Writing Boxes are available to use in the library. Clean up the area and put away supplies.

Step 5. Take a few minutes to share the work