D.I.Y. dollhouse Build and decorate a toy house using everyday materials

This how-to book on building a dollhouse encourages "recycling, reusing garbage, and repurposing disposable products" in the name of having inexpensive fun. Henrion, an illustrator based in Hamburg, Germany, teaches readers by way of example, constructing a makeshift dollhouse by stacking six fruit crates on top of one another. Each crate serves as a room: there's a living room, three bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a patio. The rooms are decorated with colorful wallpaper and elaborate miniature home decor made from scraps around the house. The book showcases each room in colorful photographs and provides instructions for how to build key pieces of furniture. In the living room, Henrion creates a coffee table out of a yogurt container, with the neck of a plastic juice bottle serving as its pedestal. A box that once held tea becomes a davenport. For the bathroom, a single-serving cream container painted and flipped becomes the basin of the toilet. Henrion's patterns for cutouts are easily traceable and the projects require basic tools like glue and an X-Acto knife. Oddly, the directions are written for children ("Ask your parents," she writes regarding selecting trash for use), yet the level detail and the sophistication of the projects are better suited for adults. Color photos. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Gr 4 Up-A descendant of Betsy Pflug's Boxed-In Doll Houses, Henrion's guide will inspire crafters to pick up cardboard, scissors, paint, and glue and get to work on their own miniature wonderlands. This offering has everything today's imaginative young people should want: photographs containing dreamy textures and patterns, clear instructions, and easy-to-find supplies. Eight chapters cover different areas of a home: living room, bathroom, bedrooms, kitchen, and an outdoor patio. Detailed building instructions for furniture and objects provide enough information for kids to copy what they see or make their own magic. Projects include a toilet, a washing machine, a sun umbrella, and a variety of chairs, tables, beds, and lamps. Makers will need just the most basic supplies to get started and then they can gather cardboard, discards, or inexpensive materials (empty creamer cups, tea boxes, bottle caps, beads, old magazines, and fabric scraps) to decorate. However, in the "Teenager's Bedroom" section, a poster on the wall of the room features a golliwog-like figure, a truly unnerving decision. VERDICT A would-be choice for crafting collections curtailed by problematic and insensitive imagery.-Heather Acerro, Rochester Public Library, MN © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.