Cool Flexagon Art

November 1, 2013

Gr 4-8-These books are not for inexperienced crafters. Flexagon requires several pages of explanatory material before the first project, "Make a Hexa-Tetra Flexagon," is even introduced. In Paper Folding, children are asked to fold an icosahedron made from 20 triangles by following a pattern without the benefit of written instructions. And in Tesselations, readers may find the sentence "You will need a truncated tetrahedron for every cuboctahedron and truncated octahedron you make" more than a little intimidating. The complexity of the crafts make it difficult to know who the appropriate audience would be. Color choices include a great deal of black and gray, making the books look somber and less than child friendly. These sophisticated choices would require adult guidance and encouragement for children to avoid frustration. Diagrams and color photos illustrate the projects.

Copyright 2013 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2013
Grades 4-6 If origami swans aren't cutting it any longer, expand your mind with the movable, geometrical designs presented in this entry in the Cool Art with Math & Science series. They're called flexagons toys made of folded paper. Though their status as toy is a bit questionable (it's never clear what you're supposed to do with these things), they are undeniably cool. Basically, flexagons are three-dimensional objects that have different numbers of hidden sides that, by flexing the paper, become revealed. Four projects are offered up, from the flat, square hexa-tetra flexagon to the shifting, expanding transformer star. Intro pages show each finished design and list the required materials and relevant terms, and then a two-page photo spread goes step-by-step through the process, which is depicted as clearly as possible given the page limit. Brief math and science interludes provide information on convex versus concave, number-related prefixes like hepta- and octa-, and 3-D geometry. Back matter includes a list of math terms. Time to enter the fold.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2014
Color photographs and diagrams combine with simple texts to explain the featured mathematical or scientific concept. Brief introductions to the topics are followed by four art projects that turn theory into practical application. Sidebars provide supply lists, applicable terms, and photographs to complement the step-by-step instructions. The overuse of exclamation points in the texts is unfortunate. Glos., ind.

(Copyright 2014 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)