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The Book Book: A Journey into Bookmaking by Sophie Benini Pietromarchi
Published by Tara Publishing, 2007

Did you know that pencil shavings, onions, dust and leaves can be some of the best items you can use to create a book. The Book Book, simple enough to be used by children without adult help, contains everything you could possibly need to know about making your own book and gives one hundred per cent, tried and trusted advice resulting from workshops with children.

The author suggests that looking into the past is one of the best ways of discovering new ideas. So if you want to create a good book, look at many different kinds that you may already know and love yourself. The treasure hunt that should follow tells you what to gather before beginning. The dust from pencil sharpening can be smeared on a page to show smoke from a steam engine. The most fascinating shapes can come from blobs of ink, blobs, mistakes and Tipp-ex can become an ogre’s skin, or a fall of snow. Subsequent chapters deal with writing a story, planning your book and illustrating it.

This book has the potential to become a fantastic activity for children aged 10 and over, for adults who work with children and is a must have for all teachers, certainly at primary school level.