Author Archives: Dana Sheridan

Forms & Functions: The Splendors of Global Bookmaking

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Book enthusiasts near and far are cordially invited to a fantastic new exhibit!

“Forms and Function: The Splendors of Global Book Making,” is currently in the Ellen and Leonard Milberg Gallery in Firestone Library on Princeton University campus. Curated by Martin Heijdra, Director of PUL’s East Asian Library, the exhibit showcases the diversity and beauty of global book making, focusing on three major traditions of the book form: codex, East Asian, and pothī.

Awash in rich jewel tones and featuring a range of striking visuals, the exhibition features treasures from some of Princeton’s lesser-known collections, as well as items from its renowned collections of Western, Islamic, East Asian, and Mesoamerican manuscripts and printed books. There are also works by modern artists completed in the style of these global traditions. For gallery hours and directions to campus, please click here. The exhibit runs through December 7, 2025.

Can’t make the trip? No worries! There is a video tour here, a digital version of the exhibit here, and a downloadable guide here.

In celebration of the exhibit’s amazing holdings, we selected some of our more unusual book-crafting projects for further fun. Simply click the titles over the images to visit the project pages!

BOOK BOUQUET

MINI TREE LIBRARY

big tree library, little tree library

CLASSIC HOWLER

a real howler

FUN FLIP BOOK 

one two books 3

WINGED CODEX

flying books

PIRANESI PICNIC

A VERY LITERARY CANARY

tweet-reading-is-sweet

THE PERFECT PLACEHOLDER

Miniature paper book with personal information about a person named Katie written in it.MINI PET PORTRAYALS

Smaug Gigantus

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Photo by Shivanparusnath. Image source: Wikimedia Commons

What do you get when science and Tolkien unite? Absolutely amazing nods to a titan of the fantasy world! The handsome reptile you see above might not have heaps of gold to protect, but it did capture the imagination of scientist Ed Stanley, who named it Smaug Gigantus after the famous literary dragon in The Hobbit.

This giant girdled lizard can be found in South Africa, dwelling in the Drakensberg mountain range. It has tough upper armor and a weaker underbelly, not unlike Smaug himself. You can read a bit more about it here.

Fascinated, Katie and I took to the interwebs to see how many more scientists were Tolkien fans. As it turns out, quite a lot!

Image source: Orchid Roots

This is the Dracula smaug orchid, discovered by Mario Portilla in Ecuador. And just in case you are wondering, “Dracula” is not a second literary reference. Dracula translates into “little dragon,” matching the appearance of the various orchids in this genus. You can read more about them here.

The adventure doesn’t stop there. In Tolkien Gateway, we found a massive listings of wasps, plants, moths, mammals, beetles, and more! Behold the Gollum shark!

Slender smoothhound, Gollum attenuatus (Garrick, 1954), collected 18 December 1953, Off Kahu Rocks, Wairarapa, New Zealand. CC BY 4.0. Te Papa (P.001509). Original image from the Museum of New Zealand

And the hairy-footed moss forest bat, otherwise known as the Syconycteris hobbit!

Image source: Zoo Chat

Or how about the Myloplus sauron, a close relative of the piranha? You can read a little more about the discovery and naming of the fish here!

Image source: Wikipedia

The full Tolkien Gateway list can be found here, and we invite you to spend a happy afternoon conducting image searches of the various species. Don’t miss the Spaeleoleptes gimli spider! And if you’d like some further fun reading, look no further than this Mental Floss post! And hats off to Pensoft blog for the absolute best blog title (and awesome photos of the Idiopyrgus eowynae and Idiopyrgus meriadoci).

Pretty Poisonous Posies

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It’s perhaps one of our most spectacular story times yet! Not only did kids get to craft the poison garden of their dreams, they got to visit a very mysterious garden in the library, and meet two very special guests!

We read Millie Fleur’s Poison Garden by Christy Mandlin (Orchard Books, 2024). When Millie Fleur La Fae and her mother move to Garden Glen, they quickly discover that the community appreciates sameness, right down to the prim matching hedges. It does not appreciate the unusual, odd, creepy, and (sometimes) poisonous plants in Millie’s garden. Ignoring the negativity, Millie invites her classmates to explore the wonderful weirdness of her garden. As more and more people show up for a tour, quirky new plants pop up around the neighborhood, making it a special place for all. Fun fact: the author was inspired to write the book after she learned of the famous Poison Garden in Alnwick Castle in England. Make sure to read all about it at the end of the book!

You’ll need:

  • 1 box (we used a 4″ x 4″ x 4″ craft box, but a small tissue box works too!)
  • 1 poison garden plant template, printed on 8.5″ x 11″ card stock
  • Drinking straws, pipe cleaners, and/or twisteez wire
  • Brown tissue paper (or paper towels)
  • Scissors and tape for construction
  • Markers for decorating

This is a very simple project with lots of room for creativity. Cut the top off of a small box, then color and cut the various plants from the template. Tape them to pipe cleaners, drinking straws, or Twisteez wire, then tuck everything inside the box. Add some brown tissue paper (or brown paper towels) as “soil” to anchor everything down. Done!

Kids were also free to improvise plants of their own! We offered toilet paper tubes, construction paper, muffin cups, fabric leaves, pom-poms, and packing peanuts as well. And lots and lots of eye stickers to ramp up the spooky factor and replicate the illustrations in the book.

We also had a special side projects for caregivers…we gave them envelope “seed packets” and a blank card, and they were free to write all the things that make their little one unique. Awwww!

Everyone was delighted with their little gardens, but we had a BIG surprise ready. An entire garden tour with Millie herself. Yes, that’s our summer intern Melanie Zhang in all her awesomeness!

We spent the week building a garden in an empty back office using leftover supplies from this Hobbit event, any and all foliage on our desks, twinkle lights, LED candles, and some weird cardboard monster blocks I picked up at a yard sale for $5.

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I did say there were two special guests at the beginning of the post. Melanie was one guest, and her frog Harold was the second! In the book, Millie has a pet frog, so Melanie brought in her special buddy for kids to find in the garden. She knitted him that handsome scarf as well. Look closely and you can see him in various photos in the post!

We would like to thank Melanie (and Harold) for brainstorming, creating, crafting and guest starring at this story time. It was completely magical – and so are you Melanie!