Lessons from The Snake Book

I've made the snake book (MHB, 39) many times, but last Friday I had an epiphany about it. A small one, but a useful one to me. The snake book, also known as the ox-plow or boustrophedon and attributed to Scott McCarney, provides a form where one can assemble and disassemble a large image by folding or unfolding the pages completely. This is how I've seen Scott use it.

But what if you want to make a book that reads a little more conventionally? You can glue parts of it together like Katherine Ng did for her book, Alphabetical Afflictions (40). It still reads like an accordion fold book, it just doesn't open flat like the book that Val, Beth, and I made, Betsy's Almanac (39).

The revelation came as I was preparing to teach a lesson I call the "whirlwind tour" of folded books. I was looking particularly for structures that could be made from one piece of paper and printed on only one side. Ed Hutchins introduced me to these long ago, and they were an interest and specialty of his.

X Book. Pants Book. T-Cut, almost. Snake, almost. I stared at Snake again. Yes! I found that by wrapping one end around to the back and securing it there, the book feels more like a traditional codex and does not move as freely as an accordion. It is possible, and more than likely, in fact extremely likely, that someone figured this out long before I did since people who like to fold paper tend to discover these maneuvers on their own.

You can use permanent glue stick, rub-on adhesive, a light application of glue at the edges, a sticker, or glued tab to secure the back cover.

This close examination of the Snake book reminded me yet again how teaching can be a path to learning something new.