Pretty good projects, actually, with only a few of the sort of things that no one actually wants their kid to bring home from school. A good balance of art and science too, maybe leaning a bit towards the science. The text was just right for my nerdy eleven-year-old and very much over my average eight-year-old's head. The kids read through the whole thing trying to decide which projects to do then settled on making paper from scratch, a "jade" ring (of polymer clay), and a seismograph.
Interesting...not too many of these are do-able in my classroom, but it's a good place to start thinking about what I can do to incorporate some art-related learning.