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2015 Nominee

Sneaky Art: Crafty Surprises to Hide in Plain Sight

Written by Marthe Jocelyn.
Published in 2013 by Candlewick.

For young artists, tricksters, and crafters, here is a hip, friendly how-to manual for creating removable and shareable art projects from easily found materials. The sneaky part is in the installation! Each work of art is custom-created for display in public places — a tiny cork-bottomed boat in a public fountain, a plate of tiny paper cupcakes on your teacher’s desk, a penny left on the ground for a stranger, a funny message left on your mother’s bathroom mirror, and more. This utterly unique guide — part craft book, part art-philosophy — offers a stylish and sweet “made-you-look-twice” spirit of fun meant to put a smile on the faces of strangers and loved ones alike.

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12 thoughts on “Sneaky Art: Crafty Surprises to Hide in Plain Sight

  1. Agnes Davidson

    I must admit, this book fills me with artistic ideas! Although, I just don’t feel like its the right kind of book to be winning the book award. Then again, that book was still very artistic and creative and that it can still be popular and well liked by many children and adults alike! Which makes me want to say, all in all, its a great book for many artistic people!

  2. Nicholas Sheran School

    I liked it because the art that it showed how to make was very intresting and I made about 8 art projects and they turned out very well

  3. Nicholas Sheran School

    I liked it because the art projects it showed was a very interesting art style. I thought it was very cool

  4. Nichoas Sharen

    I really like this book because it has lots of describing word so it was so easy to follow and there were lots of things people can do.

  5. Hillhurst Elementary Schools

    This Book is about how to make super surprising crafts that will are designed to give surprise people and you can hid them in plain sight! This this I like about this book was how you make the look-like-real-cupcake project and you can fill them with glue and Opps someone bit into the look-like-real-cupcake. I loved this book because it teaches you different types of crafts and how to do it. The thing about this book that really pulls you in is the fact it teaches you that you can turn a simple paper plate into a monster mask! This book is a great exciting, fun, hook pulling book.

  6. Hillhurst Elementary School

    Sneaky Art: Crafty Surprises to Hide in Plain Sight

    In Sneaky Art, the author shows and gives you instructions to make art that you can leave on park benches to make people feel happy when having a bad day. My favourite was when you leave a penny on the ground and put a giant bright-colored sign saying: PICK ME UP, things like that, just to make peoples day. I think sneaky art is a very good book because it gives you crafts and ideas to make random strangers happy.

    It is a book that the author wanted to have young people read and follow the ideas to get them inspired to do nice, friendly things for people they might not even know. It gives them the author’s ideas and tries to get people reading it to come up with their own ideas to make people happy if they find the surprises. It makes people happy to know that someone is not self centered to never notice the people around them that someone actually cares if they are having a bad day. Maybe people that got them will feel so happy, that they will even carry it on to do it to other people. That way it is like a chain, if each person leaves two, then it will carry on to so many people.

    I think the author achieved her purpose of the book to help others make random people happy. She did a very clear writing style that makes people know that she really wanted her book to succeed and help people make others pass on the way she wanted her book to make people happy. The book convinced me to make some of the ideas in my spare time at my school and scatter them in places people could find. I read it and thought, wow. I want to do something like that. I just needed to do it.

    I loved Sneaky Art for all the reasons above and because I thought it related to me. I recommend it to anyone who reads this because it is a very good book to get you working and thinking. Remember, pass on the chain.

  7. Hillhurst Elementary School

    Book Review
    SNEAKY ART
    Crafty Surprises to Hide in Plain Sight
    Sneaky Art is a book where you get sneaky with your art, like you can tell from the title. It takes thing for your recycling bin and reuses it to make some art. You can learn how to make, sink boats, tissue-paper cupcakes and tinfoil fish and learn how to sneak then as the book said.
    I say this is a great book if you are a person that loves to make crafts. The purpose of the book has been achieved. It is a really great craft book. There are simple guide lines to help even the worst crafters to make something. The crafts are simple but fun to make. This is an ecofriendly craft book, because as I said in the beginning, it uses thing from your recycling bin. So this is overall a great craft book.
    I say this is a great book for artists who, just want to craft something. It is a non-fiction book that tells you how to make crafts, so there is no story, or plot development. So if you don’t like crafting, don’t read the book. But is you love making crafts, you have a ton at home, then I would definitely suggest that you read this book.


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