‘Art2-D2’s Guide to Folding and Doodling’
5/1/2013
Courtesy of Beaverdale Books
Review by Harriet Leitch
Amulet Books
Pub Date: March 26, 2013
$12.95
163 pp.
Tom Angleberger is the author of the bestselling Origami Yoga series (“The Strange Case of Origami Yoda,” “Darth Paper Strikes Back”). In this book, he adheres to the “Star Wars” theme continuing to aim it at readers ages 8-12. In the beginning chapters, the author explains the art of doodling to the reader. He starts with simple letters and numbers, showing the reader the basics of his drawing style: The capital “T” starts a Boba Fett figure, a capital “M” creates the ears for a dog, tracing around a quarter provides the circle for the artist to draw in the face, etc. After the doodling chapter, the book moves on to what is called “doodle-gami.” Here a pair of artists combines their talents — one creating the origami figure, the other doodling in the details. Another chapter helps kids draw people — starting with the clothes and then adding the body parts.
Our recent extended period of rain and wind and cold makes a book such as this invaluable as it can provide hours of entertainment. In the middle of the book, the authors provided color paper to create some of the “Star Wars” characters, although lots of practice using plain paper is strongly recommended. Most of the text is presented in a characteristic Yoda-talk. In fact, a chapter is devoted to teaching the reader how to construct sentences in Yoda style. Finally, in one of the last chapters I identified an old trick that is still around — who knew Silly Putty was still in use? Great addition for your rainy day cache of activities. CV
