I love the way this book has a good introduction for Westerners on this fascinating craft, charting the history of crochet and knitting in Japan from samurai warriors knitting socks (which conjures up an utterly delightful picture) to amigurumi. These little creatures owe their existence to the manga and animé phenomenon that arose after WWII, when Japan had to invent a whole new culture. If, like this reviewer, you are a fan of this type of thing, you are going to find this irresistible, particularly as this is a book about designing your own creatures instead of making up patterns of other people’s dreams.

The patterns come from drawings, and there is a whole chapter devoted to how this is done, as well as diagrams on crochet stitches and a table of abbreviations as well as a chart for "the kooky world of hook sizes." Working in the round and reading the charts is covered too, of course, although I would have liked this done in greater depth with some staged photographs. There are lots of amigurumi to make up of varying complexity, and some lively and humorous pictures of them doing things, complete with sayings. Like all Search Press books, this is very visually pleasing, and the large diagrams showing how all the bits are put together are very helpful. There is even a list of UK and US yarn and hook suppliers, so even if you don’t get it at first, you can buy a lot of what you need to get it right - and this is not an expensive craft which is good news.

If you cannot find a good range of knitting materials locally try SearchPress.com for a list of suppliers.