Ebook Review: Whipup Action Pack

It’s always a good day when I get to review another splendid indie publishing project! You may already be familiar with Whipup, a blog about all things crafting based in Australia. Kathreen Ricketson, the publisher of that blog (and a past podcast guest) has just come out with Action Pack – a mini digital magazine of activities for kids.

I adore the concept here. This isn’t a random collection of projects! Everything involves beeswax or honey. And the range is really cool – there are origami boats dipped in beeswax so they float. There’s a honey cake recipe. There are beeswax candles and lip balm, plus beeswax, honey and vanilla hand lotion. There are even instructions for drawing both realistic and cartoon bees!

All in all, it’s enough projects for a fun-filled and educational weekend. Imagine the understanding of these materials a kid can gain from approaching them from all these different directions!

The instructional quality throughout is great, too. There are diagram and photo instructions for all the key steps of each project. The text instructions are written in kid-friendly language (this pack is designed for kids aged 7 and up). Parents will definitely want to be on hand to help with melting wax and baking, but there are also activities kids could tackle on their own.

The beauty of the digital format is, parents can print specific pages and hand them to a child for solo fun.

Ooh – just backing up a little to mention that there are actually diagrams for folding two styles of origami boats, plus a drinking cup and a water bomb. I just love the idea of wax-dipping these!

To round out the educational value, the pack offers a page of interesting facts, and a page of other uses for honey. Just a charming and useful presentation, made very affordable. Kathreen, I hope to see lots and lots more of these! Score one over here.

…And as if that weren’t enough, there are two printable calendar pages and a whole page of printable labels for your various creations!

Someday I need to write a little encyclopedia of all the reasons digital publishing rocks. In digital form, of course.