For the last two years, my 12 year old sister Amy has come down and stayed with Katie and me for the first week of August. Since it is not socially acceptable to turn a minor out on city streets for a whole day, I take her to work with me every day, which she tolerates reasonably well. However, after a day or two she gets a bit tired of doing summer reading and drawing pirate treasure maps (her first line of defense against the boredom) and starts heavy sighing and looking wistfully at the curtains blocking the windows. So, this year, in addition to learning how to knit, Amy wanted to learn how to fix a book. And if I may say so, she kicked some major ass at both of these things. Here are some shots from the book treatment:
My sister Amy trying to convince herself that she’s having fun working on a book
Amy’s tiny fingers building a hollow and reinforcing the back joint with thin layers of Japanese tissue
The book all bundled up after closing the hollow
Reattaching the front board with layers of thin tissue (flanges intentionally extended from the hollow) and wheat starch paste
Reinforcing the hinge with layers of thin tissue and wheat starch paste
Boombabay! The book after treatment. Well done, padawan learner!
The repair itself is a technique that Jana Dambrogio (Head Conservator of MIT Libraries) came up with a few years ago*, and is so awesome that a person with no experience (though Amy does have some mad hand skillz) can perform a reversible and historically sympathetic conservation treatment with fairly little fuss, which I think it pretty amazing (though having a working knowledge of historic book structures is vital to knowing how/when to use it). And last but not least, as a token of my appreciation for my sister, here is a GIF of her showing off her finished book and sneezing at the same time: 
+++++++++++ *If you are interested in this technique, check out this video that Jana Dambrogio, Mary Uthuppuru, Ayako Letizia, and I made while I was in Boston this June that demonstrates a simple version of the repair. It also features Jana’s pretty rings on all of our fingers at different points in the film (to keep things interesting).
Brien Beidler 