View source for Incredibuilds: House-Elves: Deluxe Book and Model Set (Harry Potter) by Jody Revenson

{{infobox2
|title=Incredibuilds: House-Elves: Deluxe Book and Model Set (Harry Potter)
|author=Jody Revenson
|reviewer=John Lloyd
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=Be the proud owner of your own Dobby, given a simple construction task and some painting – and, more importantly, read how the professionals did it originally.
|rating=4.5
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=40
|publisher=Studio Press
|date=October 2016
|isbn=9781783707072
|website=
|video=
|aznuk=1783707070
|aznus=1783707070
|cover=1783707070
}} 

How do you create a house-elf like Dobby?  Well, you have a tennis ball on a string, and point actors so they look at it, and say their lines to a pretty-much empty space.  You then film Toby Jones doing the elf's lines, and use that sound file and his facial expressions as basis for your CGI creation – the first major character to come from the digital realm in the ''Harry Potter'' films.  You can throw in a few puppets, and now and again a gifted small person, particularly at the end of film #7…  Or, of course, you can get this gift set, and press the wooden parts out, muckle them together – and lo and behold, a six inch tall Dobby for your windowsill. 

This is about the fourth product I've experienced from the greater Insight Editions stable in the past month.  They're a house firmly with their nose in the tie-in trough – colouring-in books, stationery, and what they should count as their piece de resistance, making-of books.  To cover the book side of this instance first (the clue is in our website name, don't'cha know), what we have is a full-colour and very visual 32-page booklet.  The writing is perfectly suited for the under-tens, and while I have to slap its wrist a little for repetition, it manages to cover its subject perfectly well – it doesn't go into anything regarding greater whys and wherefores, it just deals with the making of a Dobby.  And a Kreacher.  And a female house-elf – there is at least one (Winky, no less) in the books, but passing fans of the films (does Harry Potter ''do'' passing fans?!) might not yet have seen how she would have looked if she'd been ultimately included. 

But the selling point of this is what bulks the product out into a firm, hard-backed and really quite posh article.  It's the kit whereby you do what I suggest earlier, and – minus Toby Jones and the tennis ball – produce your own Dobby.  And that's what they suggest it to be – fun and easy.  I can't see anybody really failing to make a satisfactory model here – the instruction sheet is small, but it's fine, simply adding each numbered item in turn to something else – either another numbered item or an easily identified fragment you've already built.  They recommend painting different sections at different times, for ease of access etc, but it won't be the most taxing mission. 

I don't see £12.99 as the RRP to be too divisive a price for what we get here.  Sure, the book could have been a little more substantial, and won't stand many re-reads once the owner outgrows it.  But can you outgrow possession of your own house-elf?  Really? 

I must thank the publishers for my review copy. 

For more realistic creatures, you should enjoy [[Press Out and Colour: Birds by Zoe Ingram]] too. 

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[[Category:Crafts]]
[[Category:Confident Readers]]
[[Category:Emerging Readers]]