Origami Adventures: Animals

School Library Journal

Gr 3-6-Though most suitable as gift items, these ingeniously designed collections could survive group use intact. Each spiral-bound volume includes clear, captioned step diagrams for 14 single-piece origami models, sandwiched between general folding advice and a double set of detachable (or copyable) sheets-one in color, and another in black and white for practice-on which are printed digitally painted, correctly oriented images of each animal's face, hide, limbs, and other features. An actual, removable folded example is tucked into a clear pocket on each front cover. Arranged in order of difficulty, and often building on previous entries, the models range from a genuinely easy bat to a 3-D frog, from a dinosaur hatchling emerging from an egg to a sharklike Ophthalmosaurus. Some, such as the elephant and T. rex, are too stylized to be recognizable except when the special paper is used-but that paper adds unusual notes of drama and realism to each finished creature.-John Peters, New York Public Library Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.