Parent/Teacher Resources

REVIEWERS: Marie Soriano

* denotes San Diego writer and/or illustrator
** Age levels, when provided by the publishers, are included in the bibliographical information. Otherwise, category placements are our best approximations.

• Ecocraft. Creative Costumes. Boston: Kingfisher, 2007. ISBN 978-0-7534-5968-3. $7.95.

Ecocraft. Creative Costumes. Boston: Kingfisher, 2007. ISBN 978-0-7534-5968-3. $7.95.

This handy book brilliantly explains how to make costumes mostly using things you already have at home. Its goal is to get people to be environmentally friendly, recycling objects instead of throwing them away. However, they are also economically friendly ideas and are especially helpful to parents who don’t have money for expensive, fancy-schmancy, store-bought costumes that your children will grow out of after one use.

There’s a “Getting Started” section at the beginning so there aren’t any surprises as to what basic tools you will need, for example, a ruler, scissors, paintbrush, paint, glue, thread, sewing needle, and elastic. It even shows readers how to make types of stitches.

The book presents eleven costume ideas and provides detailed instructions on how to make each one. They are a mermaid, fairy-tale fairy, princess, witch, cat, wizard, Frankenstein monster, skeleton, dragon, and pirate. The instructions are clear and as simple as they get, so even a kid could follow them. In fact, these would be great projects for a parent and child to do together.

You may not be able to figure out how to program your VCR, but you’ll be able to make your child a costume for Halloween.

Marie Soriano