Colonial Crafts

Historic Communities

by Bobbie Kalman

Colonial Crafts introduces young readers to the craftspeople who created useful works of art by hand. Children will find out how the artisans learned their trades through many years of apprenticeship, as their masters did before them, and gain an appreciation of the beautiful handmade objects that have lasted more than two hundred years. Visit the workshops - the wheelwright - the cooper - the founder - the shoemaker - the milliner - the gunsmith

32 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1991

About the author

Bobbie Kalman is the award-winning author of more than 400 non-fiction books. She established herself as a leading author in children’s non-fiction in the 1980’s and 90’s with two acclaimed series about pioneer life, The Early Settler Life Series (15 titles) and The Historic Communities Series (31 titles), both published by Crabtree Publishing. She has created many of Crabtree’s most popular series, which also include The Native Nations of North America Series (19 titles), The Lands, Peoples, and Cultures Series (93 titles), and The Science of Living Things Series (32 titles), among others.

Born in Hungary in 1947, Bobbie and her family escaped to Austria during the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. The family spent several weeks there as refugees before immigrating to North America. A former teacher, Bobbie Kalman taught at both the elementary and secondary levels. She also spent several years working as an educational consultant for several publishing companies. Bobbie holds degrees in English, Psychology, and Education. She is married and has four children and three grandchildren.

Although best known for her non-fiction, Bobbie’s newest book is autobiographical. Released in September, 2006, Refugee Child is the account of Bobbie and her family’s escape from Hungary when she was just nine years old. Written to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution in October of 2006, the book is told from the perspective of a young girl.

Reviews

[Lindy Schlehlein · Rating 4 out of 5]

The pictures of reinactments makes the book a perfect addition to any study of the colonial period.

[Duane · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very nice resource for the beginning reader who wants to know all the various craftspeople that inhabited a normal colonial village. Nice photos and illustrations give the reader a look inside the world of the artist that lived back then. I like that the author includes children in the details so young people can see that even back then, children were a big part of the working life.