Paper John

Grade 1-3 Young John makes his living selling paper toys, flowers, kites, and favors. He wears a paper hat, sleeps in a paper bed, even his house is made of paperand a good thing, too, for when an angry imp has the whole town blown out to sea, John refolds his house into a boat and sails to the rescue. Readers who enjoyed Small's Imogene's Antlers (Crown, 1985) will find the same sort of witty, slightly antique-looking illustrations here. John wears baggy 19th-Century clothes and a genial expression; the diminutive devil, all in gray, scowls his way ferociously through the story; and Small scatters cats, children, and accurately-rendered paper objects all about. Besides being a terrific, imaginative story, this is a natural for use with origami; there is a feasible progression from one model to another (no step-by-step directions, though), and the transformation of house to boat, which occurs over several pages, captures paperfolding's creative magic perfectly. John Peters, New York Public Library
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

"A strange, gentle fellow comes to a town by the sea. Paper John folds paper into all sorts of shapes-flowers, kites, even houses and furniture. By accident he catches a small gray devil on his fishing line...An enchanting fable told with economical language and imaginative illustrations."--The New York Times Book Review