Woodworking for Beginners

Hannah found a great woodworking how-to book entitled as above to add to our library. My initial thumbing through the pages made me wonder whether this was a book for adults or for children. On the one hand the projects seem more than beginner-level projects and then the only image of a person in the book is a child that looks around 8-10 years old.

As a child I did what appears in the book. I made wheeled efforts from old chests and children's pram wheels. In those days high coach built prams had chromed, spoked wheels and real rubber tyres. The axle was a 1/2" square bar turned down either end to receive the wheel hub. you could screw through the axle to attach it to anything you wanted.

This book was reprinted as a revised edition in 1946 so originally it was a mid 1940s book. What were the expectations of the author and the publisher in that time? Was this realistically targeted or perhaps more aspirational? It seems intended for home use rather than schools. Schools didn't start woodworking until around 12-13 years and it was boys only in schools for the main part until 1970s???

The book made me think seriously about woodworking for children today as I really don't ever hear of parents teaching any practical skills like woodworking to their children and I rarely meet any adult males under 30 who have any serious hand skills taught to them through schools. I am never sure if if this is a good thing or a bad thing these days as the assumption now is that being a teacher of academics somehow automatically qualifies you to teach any subject without access to real life itself.

I looked at these projects and felt they were too high demand for young children without the oversight of a skilled teacher and by that I mean skilled woodworker.

I did enjoy reading the practical lessons in this how-to. It was down to earth.