Ever since she was able to walk and select her own reading material for bedtime, my daughter has disliked the dust jackets that adorn most hardback books. She must remove the casing straightaway in order to properly read and enjoy the work. I suppose many kids could have this odd little tendency, which means many of us may have amassed a nice little collection of dust jackets. So, what do we as parents do with all those book covers complete with illustrations, artwork and fancy fonts?
For the past couple years, we have been collecting them in a closet in a messy arrangement that I was eager to dissolve; however, throwing them away seemed such a waste. Now that my daughter is officially in her ‘big kid’ room, we have decided to frame a couple beloved book covers and use them as wall art in her bedroom and playroom. To let these things go to waste is criminal as so many of the finer children’s books feature stunning watercolors and illustrations that only appear on the covers. We are allowing my daughter to get involved by having her select some favorites to display. With the theme of her room being Paris, France we think the cover of Adele & Simon (an endearing tale set in Paris) will certainly be in the mix. Why spend additional money on hanging art when we all have these perfectly suitable pieces of art right under our noses?
Another idea for these dust jackets is to make a scrapbook style collage of your child’s favorites. You could organize this by year and have a wonderful accompaniment to their photo album, mix cd, and scrapbook of adventures. If you and your family cherish books and reading as much as we do, this should go over very well with your little ones as well serve as a literary time capsule that can be reflected on each year as your child grows out of his or her books.
Have you ever gotten extra use out of such items? What did you do with them?
Arts and Crafts for Kids Forum