[.ca] My Little House Crafts Book: 18 Projects from Laura ... (ISBN 0064462048)

Teacher's View for My Little House Craft Book:
This book is a great opportunity to learn about crafts and stories through the eyes and hands of a pioneer child. Children will enjoy the stories from Laura Ingles Wilder. With each story, a craft is illustrated with colorful pictures and detailed step by step instructions that are very easy to follow. A great teaching tool and a good book to add to your shelf.

Rather Disappointing, Actually.:
I'd hoped for a nice selection of crafts. While a few of the items listed are interesting and "crafty" (the quilt, bead crafts, straw hat, hood), most are defintely stretching the definition. I wouldn't consider a garden or a loaf of bread to be a 'craft'... and does anyone REALLY need instructions to figure out how to make a button string? The original Little House books explain quite well how to make the orange flower and button lamp. (And what you'd do with a decorative button lamp is a puzzle to me anyway.) We learn how to make the tassles for Mary's bedshoes, but there are no instructions for making the shoes themselves.

A less-than-respectful treatment of the skilled crafts...:
I know that Carolyn Collins and Mary Collier wanted to keep their craft projects as simple as possible, so that they would be fun for our TV-glutted, skill-deprived youngsters. But in doing so, they curtailled themselves from creating a masterpiece of historical analysis like The Little House Cookbook. How about showing some of the REAL projects that we read about in the Little House books, like the dresses that Laura and Mary laid out by drafting patterns on old newspaper, or the cabinetry that Almanzo built to delight his wife? Aside from very young children, the handy people described in the Little House books manufactured items that were more useful and complex than Brownie Scout camp crafts. That it bears the "Little House" brand name does not separate this book from the pack.