The Kids' Multicultural Art Book: Art and Craft Experiences from Around the World

This is another excellent art book in the "A Williamson Kids Can! Book" series. I have several in the series, all of which have provided me many ideas for my students' art projects. I have used this particular book least however, because the projects are more complicated than the other books, and require more adult intervention, especially with younger children. It's advertised as for ages 4-8, but for children to work more independently, I recommend most projects as suitable for ages 7-13. Materials include paper, aluminum foil, yarn, salt dough, yarn, popsicle sticks, mud, paper plates, papier mache. There are recipes included for the papier mache and salt dough. The projects represent the following cultures: Native American, Latin American, African, Indian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Thai and Vietnamese. None are very authentic, but are good simulations of arts from these cultures, and can enhance cultural studies, or be done just for fun. One project I have returned to several times because of it's ease to do, and because of its attractive artistic results is the Guatemalan Wild Cat.

This is a wonderful book with a range of easy to more complicated crafts for children from 4-8. We have done a number of the projects in here and not only do my children enjoy them, but they get some exposure to cultures outside of their own. There are suggestions for changing the art projects to incorporate more creative impulses as well. It's the one craft book I keep returning to because the ideas are so interesting.