HOW TO MAKE A BOOK.
Do any of my boy readers know how to make a book? Not the fine volumes turned out by the thousand in our great publishing houses, but the little individual books made by boys and girls, and needing for their construction only an old used-up ledger, a small tin pan of paste, and scraps cut from newspapers or books. These bits may consist simply of poems, or they may be “a little of all sorts.”
I recently saw a very nice book of this kind made by a boy of twelve, which was composed entirely of humorous pictures and jokes, culled from several illustrated and daily papers, one or two almanacs, and various other chance publications, which he had collected during the year. Whenever he found any bright or witty thing, he would carefully preserve the clipping by putting it in a large paper box he kept in a convenient place for that purpose.
He reserved the pasting for rainy days and winter evenings, and as he took much pains with the arrangement and neat appearance of his book, this operation was necessarily slow, and formed a pleasant occupation for many hours which would otherwise have been wasted.
In making such a book, do not try to complete it in a week or even a month, but let it, like my boy friend’s, furnish amusement for a year.
Get your father and mother interested, and ask them to save any scraps they may see, and think appropriate for the purpose.
A handsomely bound scrap-book, specially designed for this use, would certainly be the most desirable thing to have; but if such a book cannot be obtained, an old ledger does very nicely in its place, and if, after it is completed, you cover it carefully with a piece of smooth brown paper and print its title neatly on the back, it will look very well on any table where you may wish to keep it.
If the latter is used, cut from it every other two leaves, reserving the third, through the book. Next be careful to trim all your clippings neatly, leaving no extra paper beyond the edges. Fit the different slips nicely on the pages, filling the little spaces left from the longer articles with any little jokes or bits of poetry you may have. Frequently a whole piece of newspaper poetry is hardly worth preserving, but some one of its stanzas may be very pretty and just the thing to fill up a place you may have left.
It is well to collect all these little things you can find, for they always come in nicely when pasting, and your book looks much better when finished if the original surface is entirely covered.
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