Create a literary masterpiece with your child. Children who love books will be even more excited about making a book that you can create together. The process of crafting homemade books can be a cherished experience for parent and child for many years to come.

What You'll Need

• Unlined, colorful, 5" X 8" index cards
• One yard of colorful fabric ribbon at least two to three inches wide
• Tacky glue

Here's How to Do It Encourage your child to draw or write her story on the index cards, and make a cover page with the title and author of the story.

Stretch the ribbon out on top of a table, and line the cards up horizontally across it, one inch apart, in the order of the story. There should be extra ribbon at both ends. Glue the cover page about six inches from the top of the ribbon. Then continue gluing each consecutive page about one inch from the page above it. Do this until you have all the pages placed on the ribbon. When the glue is dry, fold up the squares starting with the cover page, accordion style, and then gather the ribbon at both ends. The ribbon can be tied in a bow to make a beautiful book!

Jennifer Thompson is an award-winning reading specialist.

Updated February 2008