Wreck This Journal (Paper bag) Expanded Edition

We recently went on a week-long family cruise and I bought two of these books - one for my 13 year old niece and one for my 10 year old nephew. I thought it might give them something to do (besides look at their electronics) while we were out to sea. To my delight, they both loved them! It was interesting to see how differently they used the books and it was funny to watch mom and dad freak out as they ripped pages and such. I had to calmly explain that they should think of it more as an "activity book" than a "journal," contrary to what the book jacket said.My niece is more of a quieter, introvert who likes to draw and create. My nephew is more extroverted and he had a grand time doing anything that involved destruction. I loved that this book gave them both something to do and that although it was the SAME book, they could still express their individuality. I'm happy to say that the entertainment value was at least a couple of days, considering how many other things were competing for their attention on the cruise ship.

Bought for 11yr old birthday gift. Pages are fun and interactive. My daughter is now begging for one after looking through it! It definitely is meant to be torn apart, wrecked, and destroyed!!

Wreck this journal is a cute little journal

First off...yes, you can do these same exercises on your own with a normal journal - but why would you, everything is laid out pretty darn nifty here! Wreck this Journal was, and still is, amazingly fun. As a type-A neat freak artist who doesn't like having anything out of place, this really helped me get out of my "gotta keep everything looking perfect or it's not perfect" mentality. This book encourages you to let go and just be artistic. There's a number of activities that can be construed in different ways, and many of the activities involve cutting, dirtying, ripping pages out, drawing with reckless abandonment, and simply having fun doing art for the sake of doing art.You don't have to go in order, if you do activities as you please, and while I'm able to sneak in some really nice pieces, I've also got in a few absolutely awful looking pages in there...and its ALL GOOD because when I look at them later, they are simply awesome. This is a great book to get people to just do art and have fun with it...once I finish this book, I'm getting another from this series...they're great!

Amazing

I ordered this for my 8-year old grand-daughter who learned about it at school. I had never heard of these journals, and I have to admit, I didn't think too much of the idea; after all, I asked her--"can't you just glue a piece of an old paper bag on a composition book (that I paid 25 cents for at the back-to-school sales) and get creative by coming up with your own ideas on how to distress/deconstruct the pages and personalize it for next to nothing"???But she begged, and I caved in...As it turned out she did enjoy working on this book during the summer break and she found many of the pages fun (she rates it 5 stars) whereas I would have only given it three stars at the most (kind of expensive for what it is) so I averaged our ratings to arrive at 4 stars.

I stumbled across this while searching for a journal for my young son. He's not quite ready for it, but as a creative, quirky 32-year-old mom, I was all over the idea of taking the opportunity to unleash on Keri Smith's genius book. It's billed towards "recovering perfectionists," and I fit right in that boat.If you're the type that won't even highlight a textbook, let alone dog-ear a page, TRY THIS. Let out your inner destructive nature (it's in there, I promise) and feel the freedom of splattering paint, coffee, and other sticky things of your choice, stabbing safety pins and staples through pages, gluing, taping, and sewing, ripping a page out and running it through the washing machine in your pocket, and so much more.Never in my life would I think I'd find myself scouring the windowsills and corners of the garage to collect dead bugs (yes, really...there's a page for that) - but there are some petrified flies carefully enclosed in tape in my journal. I've begun peeling stamps off of mail, stickers off of fruit, finding small white objects and cutting out the letter "W" to adhere to their respective pages.This is the perfect opportunity to create mixed-media art - use paint, colored pencils, crayons, chalk, or anything goopy you can find in your house to make your own, absolutely unique masterpiece. The wear-and-tear, colors, and written entries will make this a sentimental book to keep and share with those who will appreciate it.