Archive for the 'art' Category

Nonfiction Monday - Animals, Animals

Published by Tricia on April 14, 2008 in nonfiction, book review, science and art. 1 Comment

There are many, many books written every day about animals. Here are two recent publications for young readers that take innovative approaches to looking at baby animals.

babyanimals.jpg closetoyou.jpg

Baby Animals: Little Ones at Play in 20 Works of Art by William Lach presents works of art in a variety of media in which baby animals take center stage. Each full page work of art is accompanied by a facing page with two words of text in large font that read baby __. Young readers will find baby dogs, baby deer, baby elephants, baby owls, and more. Below these two-word descriptors is a single sentence on each page that tells what the particular baby animal is called. The baby deer page reads “Baby deer are called fawns,” and the baby bats page reads “Baby bats are called pups.” Looking at the selected pieces of art provides wonderful opportunities to try and guess the media they were created in. Pieces include an embroidered carpet (the cover image), a dragon robe, a bark painting, ivory carving, Japanese scroll painting, lithographs, and more traditional works in oil and watercolor. With few exceptions, nearly all of these pieces come from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Close to You: How Animals Bond by Kimiko Kajikawa presents photographs that highlight animal parents and their young during the intimate moments of bonding. Each full page photograph is accompanied by a facing page containing a short sentence about the animal pair. The rhyming text briefly describes how the animals communicate and/or share affection. Here is an excerpt.

Kangaroos
nestle and go for a ride.
Elephants
walk closely side by side.
Giraffes
pucker up, sniff, and lick.
Dolphins
whistle, clack, and click.

The pictures and text on each double-page spread are matted and framed by layers of color, with pages beautifully framed in purples, yellows, blues and oranges. The text ends by highlighting the ways in which humans show affection and caring. At the end of the book is an informational section that presents a bit of background information on each animal. A chart is also included that presents data on each of the animals in the book, including number of babies typically born, weight at birth, weight at maturity, and age of independence. Also listed are some animal web sites of interest.

Both of these books provide interesting views of baby animals and will make outstanding additions to collections for young children.

Book: Baby Animals: Little Ones at Play in 20 Works of Art
Author: William Lach
Publisher: Abrams Young Readers
Publication Date: 2008
Pages: 46 pages
Grades: preK-2
ISBN: 978-1588391827
Source of Book: Copy received from publisher.

Book: Close to You: How Animals Bond
Author: Kimiko Kajikawa
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Publication Date: 2008
Pages: 32 pages
Grades: preK-2
ISBN: 978-0805081237
Source of Book: Copy received from publisher.

This post was written for Nonfiction Monday. Head on over to Anastasia Suen’s blog and check out all the great posts highlighting nonfiction this week.

Nonfiction Monday - Gallery Ghost

Published by Tricia on March 31, 2008 in nonfiction, book review and art. 0 Comments

Remember those “spot the difference” puzzles you solved as a kid? I loved the challenge of comparing two illustrations or photographs and finding all differences between them. Imagine my surprise and utter delight to find a book that uses this format to introduce children to the world of art.

galleryghost_view.jpg

In Gallery Ghost: Find the Ghost Who Paints the Most! by Anna Nilsen, readers learn that the ghosts of 24 artists haunt a gallery. At night, the ghosts play a game where they sneak details from their own paintings onto other artists’ pictures. Sarah, the art student who helps to keep the gallery clean, challenges readers to help find the ghost who makes the most changes to the paintings of others. First she introduces each of the 24 artists, from Hendrick Avercamp to Marguerite Zorach. Next she outlines the steps to take to find the changes and “keep score” for each ghost. The book comes with a magnifying glass to help readers compare original paintings to the ones with changes, as well as a score sheet to keep track of which ghost has made the most changes.

Once directions have been given, readers get to the heart of the matter. The pages in the center of the book are cut (literally) horizontally. The paintings, which come from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., are arranged in two ways. The top half of the page shows the images in chronological order. These are the “doctored” paintings, or the ones with ghostly changes. The bottom half of the page presents the artists in alphabetical order, accompanied by their original painting and a short poem that highlights the painter’s philosophy or technique. Written by Besty Franco, the poems cover a range of topics, from subject matter, to color and composition.

I decided to test my skills by beginning with the doctored painting Tropical Forest with Monkeys by Henri Rousseau. It was rather easy to spot what was added to the painting, but quite another matter to determine which artists were the culprits. I must admit that my old eyes did need the magnifying glass, and that at times it was hard to compare images when they didn’t align directly top-to-bottom. However, I had great fun searching for answers and learned a lot in the short time it took me to solve this first puzzle. I imagine any reader interested in art will have internalized quite a bit about the artists and their works by the time they finish spotting and attributing the differences for all the paintings.

The book ends with a brief biography of each author and an answer key where the differences are highlighted on the piece of artwork and identified by artist who made them.

Gallery Ghost is an interesting book that introduces art to young readers in an unusual and engaging manner. I recommend it for anyone who enjoys puzzles, close observation and/or art.

Book: Gallery Ghost: Find the Ghost Who Paints the Most!
Author: Anna Nilsen, poems by Betsy Franco
Illustrator: Richard Sala
Publisher: Birdcage Press
Publication Date: 2008
Pages: 40 pages
Grades: 4-8
ISBN: 978-159960-036-9
Source of Book: Copy received from Raab Associates, Inc.

This post was written for Nonfiction Monday. Head on over to Anastasia Suen’s blog and check out all the great posts highlighting nonfiction this week.

Nonfiction Monday - Artist to Artist: 23 Major Illustrators Talk to Children about Their Art

Published by Tricia on February 25, 2008 in nonfiction, book review and art. 1 Comment

artists.jpg

My son has been enamored of art, looking at it and creating it since he could pick up a crayon and scribble. He’s particularly interested in how pictures tell stories and how they are created, so reading Artist to Artist: 23 Major Illustrators Talk to Children about Their Art with him has been particularly enjoyable.

This anthology begins, “Dear Young Artist…” What follows is a letter from one of 23 artists (with the exception of Lionni, whose letter is written by his granddaughter) about how and why they became an artist and their thoughts on their chosen profession. The letter is followed by a self-portrait of the artist on the outside of a gatefold. The fold-out pages include studio photos, sketches, examples of the evolution of a piece of work, and much more. Most artists have also included photographs from their childhood.

The letters are as different as the art created by these talented folks. In reading them, we learn about hope, inspiration, and dreams. We also learn about art itself. Here are some examples.

Mitsumasa Anno - “But in developing one’s own individual artistic style, I believe that the culture that is part of your being from childhood is of great importance. If you look deeply into the culture you were brought up in, you will find there the inspiration and the roots of your own power to create good pictures.”

Nancy Eckholm Burkert - “Artists observe. The trajectory of a ball, the thrust of a twig, the enigma of fog, patterns in the sand, the uniqueness of every cloud, the convolution of an ear, the mood on a friend’s face … everything has meaning to our eyes.”

Mordicai Gerstein - “What I always wanted to do in my pictures was to express my feelings about something — a mood of some kind, or a piece of music, or how I felt about some event or person. That’s what I still try to do. I try to make pictures that aren’t about something, but that make you feel something, — about an event, a person, or maybe just the picture itself.”

Rosemary Wells - “Draw from your life. Draw all the time. Expect to be different from other kids, because if you are an artist, you are different. Sometimes it’s hard to be different. Sometimes it hurts when people don’t understand you or laugh at you for not being cool enough, but stay the course. Believe in yourself. Believe in the paintings and drawings that come out of your mind and your hand.”

Illustrators featured in the book include:

  • Mitsumasa Anno
  • Quentin Blake
  • Ashley Bryan
  • Nancy Ekholm Burkert
  • Eric Carle
  • Tomie dePaola
  • Jane Dyer
  • Mordicai Gerstein
  • Robert Ingpen
  • Steven Kellogg
  • Leo Lionni
  • Petra Mathers
  • Wendell Minor
  • Barry Moser
  • Jerry Pinkney
  • Alice Provensen
  • Robert Sabuda & Matthew Reinhart
  • Maurice Sendak
  • Gennady Spirin
  • Chris Van Allsburg
  • Rosemary Wells
  • Paul O. Zelinsky

These letters are gifts from the heart of the artists, who share bits of their souls with readers. For children interested in how books are made, how art is created, or just crazy about creating art of their own, this book will help them recognize that becoming and artist is not only a process that requires dedication, practice and passion, but also an endeavor that can last a lifetime. I recommend this for readers of all ages who share a passion for the art of storytelling in pictures.

Book: Artist to Artist: 23 Major Illustrators Talk to Children about Their Art
Publisher: Philomel Books
Publication Date: 2007
Pages: 114 pages
Grades: 3-12
ISBN-10: 0399246002
ISBN-13: 978-0399246005
 Source of Book: Personal copy purchased from local independent bookstore.

This review was written for Nonfiction Monday. Head on over to Anastasia Suen’s blog and check out all the great posts highlighting nonfiction this week.