Making the Children's Year

I am always excited to look at a book by Marije Rowling as her illustrations are a delight, and her projects always work! This is an updated, full colour and beautifully published second edition of The Children's Year. It includes all sorts of crafts, ideas and activities, such as making nature and seasonal tables, lanterns, moving picture cards, sewing and knitting, dolls, building dens, and paper-crafting. Each seasonal craft has simple, clear and beautifully illustrated instructions. They are mostly suitable for adults to make for children, and others can be made by children of different ages. The crafts are organised by season, and the nature table ideas are very useful and practical. There are three books (published by Hawthorn Press), which I have always included in every booklist for anyone working in early childhood to include in their, and their parent, library. They are All Year Roun;, Festival, Family and Food, All Year Round[sic] and now this revised version of The Children's Year. Making the Children's Year includes crafts and illustrations by Marije Rowling. My only gripe with this book, is the difficulty of making it lie flat - thank goodness I have a resipe book stand to put it in! I do hope that the spine does not split more than it has over the very many years it will be used! -- Janni Nicol * Kindling issue 32 Autumn/Winter 2017 *