Frustrating but promising designs
I breezed through the author's beginner origami books so I thought I would be ready for this intermediate book. Wrong. Even the "easy" designs (one or two stars on a scale of one to four) were frustrating. I would cruise through a third or half way through the design and then hit a step that I could spend more than an hour on and still not figure it out. Very frustrating because I was excited to do some of the bug designs for my sons.
If you are an advanced intermediate, you will probably enjoy this book very much because it has many cool designs for birds and bugs. But if you struggle at all at the intermediate level, avoid this book unless you don't mind approaching an expert or watching a video to get you over the humps you will undoubtly encounter.
Excellent models, well diagrammed
Another excellent origami book from John, albeit a somewhat strange pairing. His bird models are all excellent, and reasonably easy for any intermediate folder to handle. I particularly like the number of birds that he includes with outstretched wings for additional realism. All the birds very well match their intended species.
Moving on to the "bugs" we only get 8 models to fold, but they are all very well done, and none did I find too difficult to get through. Having often been frustrated by the butterfly in Robert Lang's Origami Insects I was particularly happy to get through John's butterfly on the first try without a hitch. You may want to use fairly large origami paper to fold the insects, particularly your first time, as you will often find yourself dealing with many layers at once needing to be folded for things like legs and antennae.
Overall, another excellent book and probably one of my favorites of John's in more recent years. I would have liked to have seen a better balance in the number of models between the birds and bugs, but it's still an excellent book and one I would highly recommend.
... the perfect cockroach
As you probably guessed Bugs and Birds in Origami is book of nifty but more challenging patterns to try out once you have already done some basic origami. The birds designs are intermediate difficulty. The bugs range towards hard, but are conversation pieces once you fold them. (Use Amazon's Look Inside feature and the pics will tell you clearly how cool these designs are.)
Diagrams were as clear as possible, given that the designs are often complex (sometime there are like 8 arrows on the same step telling you to fold all at once - gack). I was able to work through these given enough time.
I recommend this book only if you know you have the patience to try and work through each pattern very carefully. These are very nice designs but also complex and not for beginners.
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