Look-alikes

There's not much reading involved in the Look-alikes books but you'll still spend hours with them. Creator Joan Steiner uses thousands of household objects to make models/collages of homes and community scenes. Pretzels become chair backs, dress shoes turn into top-down cars, dry lasagna noodles hang as ruffled curtains, a ghetto blaster morphs into a school bus with chocolate glazed doughnut wheels. Don't ignore the background - there are surprises there too.

Photographer Thomas Lindley has captured every detail in his beautifully clear photos. (Unless, of course, there are structural details we're not supposed to see.) Although your first impression is that the glove is a hill, you don't have to strain to see that the hill is, in fact, a glove.

These books are wonderful for stimulating creativity in young (and older) minds. They are fabulous for entertaining a broad range of ages all at the same time. They make you look differently at your surroundings. (They are also dangerous for anyone with even slight packrat tendencies because now everything can be saved "for a craft.") Teachers, children's group leaders, caregivers, and creative types can use these books as springboards for projects. Just imagine what you can do with a digital camera, a simple storyline, a bit of glue, some working space, and a whole lot of formerly useless stuff! (Best of all, once you have the pictures, you can ditch the model.)

Look-alikes books are by Joan Steiner. Published by Little, Brown and Co., starting in 1998. There are now at least 7 titles in the series, some, unfortunately, out of print.