When faced with a blank page, most kids (and people!) are intimidated—unless they’re being asked to destroy it. That was the theory behind Keri Smith’s Wreck This Journal, now a literary phenomenon that’s sold over 200,000 copies and counting.
Now, Smith is back with MESS: The Manual of Accidents and Mistakes in which she asks readers to break their librarians’ rules and make a mess of a book on purpose. Using accidents and mistakes, readers venture where they wouldn’t normally go with the possibility of creating something unexpected.
Smith dares us to:
• Drop some kind of colored liquid (ink, tea, coffee) onto a page from a good height (at least five feet)
• Draw in the dark (or with eyes closed)
• Creatively misspell words
• Paint a picture in a water-based medium (pen, marker, watercolor, etc.) and leave it out during a rain or snowstorm
• Bury the book and dig it up
Your whole life you’ve been taught to avoid making a mess: Try to keep everything under control, color inside the lines, make it perfect, and at all costs, avoid contact with things that stain!
This book asks you to do the opposite of what you have been taught. Think of it as your own personal rumpus room. A place to let loose, to trash, to spew, to do the things you are not allowed to do in the “real world.” It’s time to make a mess.
The only three rules you’ll find in this book:
1. Do not try to make something beautiful.
2. Do not think too much. (There is no “wrong.”)
3. Continue under all circumstances.
Keri Smith is an artist, illustrator turned guerrilla artist. She is the author of several bestselling books about creativity including the bestselling Wreck this Journal (2007 Perigee), How to be an Explorer of the World –the Portable Life/Art Museum, (2008 Perigee), The Guerilla Art Kit (2007 Princeton Architectural Press), Living Out Loud – Activities to Fuel a Creative Life (published 2003 by Chronicle Books), and Tear up this Book! :The Sticker, Stencil, Stationery, Games, Crafts, Doodle, And Journal Book For Girls!, (2005 American Girl). Her newest book, Mess: The Manual of Accidents and Mistakes. She is the author of the popular weblog the Wish Jar, and writes on occasion for a variety of magazines. Keri spends her days playing with her husband and son, reading, cooking and writing books and divides her time between upstate New York, and the countryside of Canada. As of fall 2010 she will be teaching part time at Emily Carr University of Art & Design in Vancouver B.C.
As a free lance illustrator she has worked for a wide variety of clients worldwide. Most recently Random House, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Ford Motor Co., the Boston Globe, Galison/Mudpuppy Press, and Hallmark. In the last few years she has given lectures and workshops on a variety of topics for The Learning, Arts & the Brain Summit at Johns Hopkins University, the How Design Conference, the OntarioGraphic Artist’s Assocation, UC Davis, and schools across North America. She has been featured in How, Step by Step, Print, Bust, Wired and many more.
I could not stress enough to visit Keri Smith’s website and buy her amazing books!
Click HERE to view creations made by readers through using various Keri Smith books.
Want to see if your masterpiece from Keri Smith’s Website wound up in her Explorations Page?
I double-dog-dare-you to read Keri Smith’s Blog!
Make sure you check out Keri Smith’s Facebook page too!
Mess: The Manual of Accidents and Mistakes retails for $13.95 and worth every penny!
One lucky reader will receive MESS: The Manual of Accidents and Mistakes! Also, be sure to check out all of our other giveaways HERE.
A complimentary product/service was provided for this review; however, all opinions expressed are our own. We were not compensated in any other way for this review. See Mommies With Cents disclosure policy for more details.
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