Paper

This is not a book on origami animals but it is definitely on making paper animals. Look at the picture on the cover of the book and you will know which of the 8 animals are. The rest of the book consists of templates you can use.

Look closely at the fish or koi. It is so realistic!

The lizard can be called an action model since its body and legs can be moved realistically like a lizard.

Only the bat is an origami bat but it is a compound model and again origami purist might not like it. It makes no difference to me since I first learned my origami models from Isao Honda's book.

I have a few books on this kind of paper craft and this book is among the best.

The book was written in 1976. So much of its prophecy has come to pass in a quarter-century that there is no doubting Mr. Katz's dead-on accuracy. When his modest work was published there was no crack-cocaine epidemic. Violent crime was only beginning to escalate beyond prior statistical levels. There were no Junk Bond Kings. Leveraged corporate buy-outs and hostile takeovers had not yet made billionaires of the new "owners" while throwing millions of hard working trades-people out of work. There was no National Health Care Plan hovering benignly nearby. Panama, Desert Storm, Somalia, 9/11, Afghanistan and Desert Shield (to name a few) hadn't occurred. "Electronic cash" was an Orwellian concept. The Homeless had not yet appeared en masse. You could purchase a new car for less than three thousand dollars. And Social Security benefits alone provided a modest but adequate allowance for the majority of retirees.

"The Paper Aristocracy" explains in structured, unemotional content the real reasons why these and many other things have come about or changed for the worse. Mr. Katz should be required reading at every business school on every university campus in America. Perhaps the danger in that explains why this book is so very hard to obtain.

There are 13 complete projects including collage, printed, fold-out and photo holder cards. Each of these will lend itself to many more varieties depending on the paper and embellishments used. There are excellent step-by-step instructions accompanied by full-color photos making assembly a breeze. Some, like the potato print card, would be great projects to do with a child. Additional sections include making your own envelopes and paper, and eight pages of paper samples.

If you are looking for beautiful cards that are simple to create and that will impress your friends and family, this is the book to get. It is also a great addition to any rubber stamper's library because the structures in these projects adapt easily to decorative stamping.