Thursday, June 18, 2020

Connecting Paper Cranes to Books - Fun with paper and books.

My friend Tony Pope began creating paper cranes in remembrance of Sandako and the Thousand Paper Crane by Eleanor Coerr (more about that at this Iowa History: Bits and Pieces blog entry at https://bit.ly/papercranes-Iowa).

He sent five of them from Georgia to Iowa.

 But once these cranes arrived in Iowa from Georgia, Tony asked if the one in the lower right reminded me of any book.  Indeed it did: despite the color patches being curved in the shape of a scale I connected it first to Elmer the Patchwork Elephant by David McKee.  You see my husband's given name is a family name going back several generations; and one of our sons named his son Elmer to stay with the tradition.  When that baby was born, I said to my son, "I know the first book I am going to buy for him."  And my son said, "I already bought it."  Me to him, "I didn't know you even knew the book."  And he replied, "Bottom shelf, right hand side, green cover."  Despite him being in California he nailed the location on the Iowa book shelves.  In the current published book, the cover shows Elmer in patchwork; but the first book about Elmer was published with a lime green cloth cover.  However most people would, because of the rounded scales associate the first crane with Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister.  So I have included both here.

The others - see what you think - and then give it a try and see what you come up with.  Fold a crane, match a book - take pictures and send them along.

Sunflowers ...


Flamingos ...


Clouds in a blue sky ...


Frida Kahlo and her menagerie of plants and animals...


Okay now create your own crane - and pair it up with a book -- just for fun.
If you don't know to fold a paper crane a quick search on YouTube will lead you to plenty of tutorials.


Cite this website as:
McElmeel, Sharron. (2020, June 18). Connecting paper cranes to books - fun with paper and books.  Author, author, and an illustrator or two.  Retrieved from https://bit.ly/papercranes-books.