Review by Kanda_theGreat -- Eggstravagant Easter Eggs
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- Kanda_theGreat
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Review by Kanda_theGreat -- Eggstravagant Easter Eggs
Eggstravagant Easter Eggs by Maya Elston is a procedural book with 200 ideas of how to design Easter eggs. Elston's ideas are practical as they have all been tried and tested. She has personally designed most of the designs in this book and found methods easy enough for anyone else to try. Her academic knowledge on artistic works has informed most of the procedures found in this book. From the information provided at the end of the book, Elston graduated from the Department of Monumental Paintings at the National Academy of Arts in Sofia, Bulgaria. She has worked as Associate Conservator for the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu. She has traveled abroad to lecture, published extensively about her projects, and co-wrote a book on Greek vases published by the J. Paul Getty Museum. These experiences have not only informed the content of her book, but also fuelled her desire to share her knowledge with everybody across the world.
Eggstravagant Easter Eggs contains an introduction and 17 chapters- each containing different ways of designing an Easter egg. In the introduction, she gives background information about the reasons she believes informs peoples' love for Easter eggs. She has further gone ahead to tell us about how her family would prepare Easter eggs on the Thursday before Easter.
Chapter one begins by advising readers on what they should look out for in the choice of eggs. The varieties to choose from include: chicken eggs(boiled eggs or empty shells) and artificial eggs made of wood or plastic. She attests to the fact that boiled eggs are an excellent choice because they can still be consumed should the procedure fail to succeed. Chapter two suggests the materials, tools and equipment that may be needed to prepare and decorate the eggs, while chapter three includes the methods and decorating techniques. Chapter four all the way to the last chapter includes the various types of Easter eggs according to their designs and materials used to design them.
Elston accompanied her procedural writings with colourful pictures; the pictures gave examples of each sample she suggested and some were detailed enough to present how an egg would appear in each level in the procedure all the way to the end product. Since some of the procedures were invented by Elston, it did the book enough justice to include pictures of what a reader should expect as an end product. I believe the strength of the book lies in the inclusion of the drawings, because they not only complimented the presentation of her ideas to the reader, but also went ahead to break the monotony of narration.
However, I also found the placement of the pictures in some chapters to be very distracting and misleading. For instance, on page 34, she described an image as containing 25 eggs, which she had given to her friends, whereas the image only contained three eggs and an additional design of the material used to design the eggs. On page 36, she describes the image as containing black and white eggs, yet the black and white eggs are found on page 34. Moreover, on page 34, she describes an image as containing the side and top view of a finished rooster, yet the image is that of silver fish, whose description is in page 45. I, therefore, had a problem navigating to and fro in the document I received for review, in a bid to place the images in their immediate contexts.
The issues mentioned above are what I did not like about the book. What proved to be an interesting text in the beginning ended up being a very boring book because of the jumbled up pictures. I believe the book was not professionally edited, otherwise, the mistakes would have been detected and corrected by an experienced editor. I am unfortunately left with no otherwise but to rate the book one out of four stars. The book cannot appeal to Muslim readers, Indian readers or readers of other religions, whose faith does not include the concept of Easter. At the moment, I cannot recommend it to any reader because I believe the correct placement of the pictures is an essential element in making the book helpful to readers.
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Eggstravagant Easter Eggs
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- Ellylion
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I hope the editor will consider the recommendations I have suggested.
Thanks for passing by.
- Faithmwangi
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Thank you for passing by.Faithmwangi wrote: ↑25 Feb 2020, 00:38 Its a shame that the errors were not detected earlier. I might circle back to the book after the corrections are made. Thanks for the review.
- Julius_
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Thank you for taking time to read and comment on my review.
- Kanda_theGreat
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- Kanda_theGreat
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Another round of editing will set the book well on its course to appeal to a greater audience.kandscreeley wrote: ↑01 Mar 2020, 18:18 It's too bad that the book has some organizational issues. Otherwise, it seems like a great book to at least look through. Thanks for your assessment.
Thank you for your comment.
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I really appreciate your comment on my review.