| The Arts 1997 | The Arts, 1996 | The Arts, 1994 | Art 1989 |
Or David Carter's If You're Happy And You Know It (Scholastic, $14.95; grades K-1) is a pop-up featuring animal characters who model movements.
Bob Barner's Dem Bones (Chronicle Books, $13.95; grades K-3) frolics across curriculum as it captures the words to the song, tells bone facts, and as the skeletons cavort across the pages they play different musical instruments! Sometimes there's music all around you.
Angela Medearis' Rum-A-Tum-Tum (Holiday House, $16.95; grades K-2) is a jazzy exploration of turn of the century New Orleans as seen as a small girl. This historical tribute to the city that made music great leaves lots of room for discussion of everything from the French Quarter to Creole. Libba Gray's Little Lil and the Swinging-Singing Sax (Simon & Schuster, $16.00; grades 2-4) shows how music can be central to family happiness. When Lil's uncle Sudi hocks his sax to buy medicine, life's unhappy until Lil recovers it and brings music and joy back. The lyrical text is filled with its own kind of music.
In Laurence Yep's Ribbons (Putnam, $5.95; grades 4-6) Robin Lee loves ballet , but when her grandmother comes from Hong Kong to live with the family expenses put an end to lessons. Robin's resentment grows until a moment of disclosure opens way to relationship and mutual support.
Children's favorite bully is back in I-Can-Read form in Barbara Bottner's Bootsie Barker Ballerina (HarperCollins, $14.95; grades K-2). Bootsie's victim of choice, Lisa takes her friend Bernie for comfort and Bootsie pushes during plies, trips during releves, and torments the two throughout ballet class. Jacqueline Ogburn's The Reptile Ball (Dial, $14.99; grades 2-5) is a wonderful arts mix. Through poetry, Ogburn shows us dances from samba to quadrille, poetic forms from haiku to limerick, and even employs the true nature of reptiles to reveal the humor and grace of ballroom dance. Younger children will enjoy the rhythms and humor, but there's lots of investigation possibilities for upper elementary to discover dance and poetic forms!
Anita Ganeri's The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra puts together illustrations and a CD to introduce the orchestra and classical music. (HBJ, $25.00; grades 3 and up)
Scholastic's "First Discovery Art Books" offers Landscapes and Paintings (Scholastic, $11.95; grades K-2) use reproductions of artists like Van Gogh, Monet and Seurat to explain technique to young children. For older children, there's What the Painter Sees (Scholastic, $19.95; grades 3-6) which makes landscapes, portraits, still lifes, landscapes, light and dark and more understandable.
Taylor Morrison's Antonio's Apprenticeship: Painting a Fresco in Renaissance Italy (Holiday House, $15.95; grades 2-5) tells the story of a young man who is apprenticed to a fresco painter and shows the process from developing an understanding of materials to making walls come alive with art.
Each title in Barrie Carson Turner's The Living Music Series explains composers, techniques, form and history, and includes a CD to accompany the text. The series includes: The Living Clarinet; The Living Flute; The Living Piano and The Living Violin (all titles $25.00 from Knopf; for grades 3 and up)
Clive Wilson edits The Kingfisher Young People's Book of Music (Kingfisher, $19.95; grades 3-8) This resource is filled with pictures and information to lead children on musical adventures through time, around the world, and to discoveries of all kinds of instruments.
New in paperback is Elisa Kleven's The Lion and the Little Red Bird (Puffin, $4.99; grades K-3). A small bird with a lovely voice is fascinated by a lion whose tail color changes daily and it's art that makes a shared language so the two can communicate.
Joanne Ryder's EarthDance (Henry Holt, $16.95; grades K-3) is a poetic imagining of the dance of the earth which begs to have movement accompany it!
Dr. Suess' rhythmic My Many Colored Days (Knopf, $16.00; ages 5-7) links emotions, and colors with dynamic illustrations.
Learning from the Lives of Others: Recent Biographies of People in the Arts
Michelle Dionetti, Painting the Wind: A Story of Vincent van Gogh (Little Brown and Company, $15.95; grades 1-5)
John Duggleby, Artist in Overalls: The Life of Grant Wood (Chronicle,$15.95; grades 4 and up)
Gloria Kamen, Hidden Music: The Life of Fanny Mendelssohn (Atheneum, $15.00; grades 5-8)
Mary Lyons, Painting Dreams: Minnie Evans, Visionary Artist (Houghton Mifflin, $14.95; grades 3-7)
Catherine Reef, John Steinbeck (Clarion, $17.95; grades 5 and up)
As the new year begins, temperatures drop, days grow bleak and dark comes earlier, lots of new reasons to share books with children begin to surface. Book sharing can lead to adventures in the world. Books are a perfect way to prepare for art museum visits.
Very young children will enjoy art with the frame provided by Museum of Modern Arts' Philip Yenawine's Places and People (both from Delcorte and The Museum of Modern Art, $14.95; ages 5-9) Places, the more simplistic of the two books focuses on observing, while People adds the complexity of inference and nuance that depends on more careful looking. Both use contrasts, similarities, and feature lots of questions to help parents begin imaginative talks about feelings, relationships, and thoughts.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Viking Books take children on a study of the work of the six masters in a new six book series highlighting the works of Bruegel, Degas, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Raphael, and Monet. All books follow the same clever title pattern, What Makes a Monet...a Monet? The forty-eight pages, jam-packed with beautiful color reproductions, delivers on the promise of each title, giving children from 8-12, clues to differentiate artists based on color, line, shape, composition, brushwork and subject. (each from Viking, $9.95)
Peggy Roalf also an educator at the Metropolitan adds to her excellent theme-based art series with Musicians and Dogs. Reproduction is excellent and the connection between artist and a specific work is in-depth and meaningful. (both from Hyperion, $6.95; ages 8-12)
Books are a great way to introduce dance. The spirit of dance is fictionalized in Eileen Spinelli's Boy, Can He Dance (Four Winds Press, $14.95; ages 4-8) Tony comes from a family of chefs, but his talents are given to dance rather than the culinary arts. Eager to please his insistent father, Tony agrees to spend a day learning the kitchen. Kitchen rhythms continually incite him to dance, until a happy accident yeilds a part for Tony in a hotel production where it's affirmed, "boy, can he dance." Spinelli's word rhythms and repetitions are captured by the illustrative correographing of Paul Yalowitz their duet sparkles through every page. Andrea Pinkney and Brian Pinkney collaborate to bring alive the life and spirit of Alvin Ailey (Hyperion, $13.95; ages 5-10) This is a great tribute to a man who changed forever African-American correography, performance, and the the world of modern dance. The Pinkneys's words and etchings honor the man and capture his whirling movements in a way children can understand.
Some of the most beautiful art in America is found between the covers of children's books. What better way to examine art and the mind of the working artist than through books that give meaningful expression on visual, emotional and literary levels? Visual art, music, and dance are all celebrated in books for children; books that capture the essence of the art and the issues of the artists.
Songs and stories are united in Go in And Out the Window which pairs familiar children's songs with artwork from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ages newborn-6. (Holt, 1987 )
This same museum backgrounds other books in the series such as We Wish You a Merry Christmas Ages newborn- adult. (Arcade, 1989)
If you like the idea of art forming illustration for another medium, you will want to later introduce your child to Keneth Koch's Talking to the Sun . This is an anthology of poems for young people in which poems and art move through time from antiquities to modern art. Ages 7-adult (Holt, 1985)
One of the first arts young children discover is dance. Little girls in particular fall in love with this form at any early age. Angelina Ballerina certainly does! She is a small mouse who has always wanted to dance. Dance dreams fill every waking moment creating havoc in her world. Fortunately, Angelina's wise father knows her dreams need airing, buys her ballet trappings, and enrolls her in ballet school. Fortunately for young ballerinas, Helen Craig has written a whole series of books about Angelina, all beautifully detailed by Katherarine Holabird. Ages 3-6. (Crown)
It's difficult to be a younger sibling with a dancing sister. Dance Tanya by Patricia Lee Gauch tells the story of small Tanya who wishes to dance like her sister Elise. Patient Elise fosters her sisters love and Tanya does a "wonderful sad swan" when she dances to Swan Lake. Finally Tanya grows up enough for her own leotard and dance lessons. Watercolored illustrations by Satomi Ichikawa help us see the balance of imagination and careful precision of young children learning dance. Ages 3-6. (Philomel, 1989)
Probably one of the first ways a child experiences visual arts is through colors and color mixing. Author-illustrator Ann Jonas who well knows the world view of the young combines dance and visual arts in her Color Dance. Three young girls with primary-colored scarves show varying hues while exhibiting the joys of dance. Later a young boy shows how black, white and grey effect color while letting a young audience see that boys enjoy dance too! (Greenwillow, 1989)
In Benjamin's Portrait by Alan Baker, we see a small hamster who has some problems with color mixing. Benjamin admires portraiture in a gallery and decides to paint a self-portrait. He quickly learns that painting is more difficult than he supposed as he becomes the painted rather than the painter. He perseveres, washes the rainbowed paint from himself and ends by thinking photography might be easier. The surprise ending can lead a young listener to a whole new set of imagining. Ages 3-6. (Lothrop, 1986)
Understanding the importance of self and art emerges early as Alice the Artist creates a picture she likes, only to have her friends suggest things she must add. Near the book's end of the now crowded landscape is eaten by a tiger, whereupon Alice decides, "I'm doing it my own way, this time!" Author Martin Waddell gives young artists a message that it's never too early to learn. Ages 3-6. (Dutton, 1988)
A similar theme appears in Frank Asch's Bread and Honey . This time the main character is a little bear who lovingly paints a picture of his mother in school. On the way home, his artwork becomes transformed as each animal he meets offers a suggestion to make the picture match their own animal mothers. The small bear brings home a rather monstrous looking picture, but unlike the other critics, she loves it the way it is. The clear implication is it is her son rather than the artwork that she loves the way as is. Ages 3-6. (Parent's,1982; Crown,1988 )
An event that causes concern early in a child artist's career can be performing. Harriet's Recital by Nancy Carlson is a calming book for a nervous performer. Harriet, the dog, loves dance but the thought of her upcoming program fills her with fears and dreads. Her encouraging teacher tells her to breathe as she goes on stage and suddenly Harriet's audience awarness ends, her love of dance takes over, Harriet gets over her nervousness and has a successful experience. Ages 3-6. (Carolrhoda, 1992; Penguin, 1985)
One really good way to understand art is through viewing the lives of artists. Perhaps the youngest autobiography I've ever read is Tomie dePaola's The Art Lesson. One of children's best loved writers and illustrators, de Paola describes the difficulties he had a young child, already having a passion for producing art and coming up against teachers who stifled self-expression. Fortunately for him (and the children who love his work) there was a teacher who appreciated, accepted and nurtured his individuality and gifts. Ages 4-8. (Putnam, 1989)
Bjork's Linnea in Monet's Garden is a book that dimensionalizes and brings Claude Monet to life through a child's vision. Linnea rather walks around in his life as she discovers the Paris he saw, Impressionism, his garden at Giverny and even talks with a relative who still lives. High quality reproductions, illustrations and photographs abound and help Linnea and other children vision this great artist. Ages 7-12. ( Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1985)
Children that want to explore different artists can do so in the series by Ernest Raboff. He discusses the life and work of artists such as Chagalll, Rembrandt, Durer, Matisses and others. Again, the reproductions of the work are good and Raboff vividly unites the artist's life and work as compliments of each other. Ages 7-12. (HarperCollins)
Children ages ten and up can view a history of Great Painters by Piero Ventura. Works of art are discussed contextually in view of history and society, artistic styles, as well as the lives of artists. (Putnam, 1984)
Older children interested in architectural artistry will enjoy Round Buildings, Square Buildings, & Buildings That Wiggle Like a Fish by Philip M. Isaacson. The magnificent photographs reveal not only well-known architectural monuments of the world,but give a sense of how buildings go together, react to light and feel inside. Ages 7-adult. (Knopf, 1988)
Music is brought into visual and literary dimensions in children's books. The story of Swan Lake is told by Margot Fonteyn and illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman. Ages 4-8. (HBJ, 1989) The same story has been expanded into a novel by Mark Helprin with periodic illustrations by Chris Van Allsburg. Ages 10-adult. (Houghton Mifflin, 1989) The opera Aida is told by Leontyne Price and illustrated by Caldecott-winning artists Leo and Diane Dillon. (HBJ, 1990) The Nutcracker told and illustrated by artists such as Lizbeth Zweger (Picture Book Studio, 1987)
Music seems a little more accessible after a child hears Karla Kuskin's The Philharmonic Gets Dressed. The book allows a peek at how the one hundred and four musicians get ready for work. Everything from bathing to dressing to transportation. Once a child views illustrations of the performers in their underwear, somehow they become more real. (HarperCollins, A Charlotte Zolotow book, 1982)
Jill Krementz's photo-essay A Very Young Dancer gives a view of The Nutcracker from the inside. It is told from the point of view of a ten year old girl who auditions, rehearses and performs the ballet. (Knopf, 1976)
Children and adults are fascinated with the works of David Macauley. In Cathedral, City, Pyramid, Castle, Unbuilding and Underground, Mr. Macaulay details and describes structures with imagination and creativity. In The Way Things Work he blends science and art in showing his readers a visual guide to the world of machines. Being easily mind-boggled by machines, I was surprised to find the illustrations and simply explained principals made sense and even seemed fun to me. (Houghton Mifflin)
In Ben's Trumpet, by Rachel Isadora, we view a young boy who thrives on the sounds of the Zig Zag Jazz Club. He begins to hear the melodies of his internal music so strongly that he plays an imaginary trumpet all day long, despite the taunts of friends or apparent disinterest of his family. Fortunately for him, the trumpeter from the Zig Zag Jazz Club sees in him a kindred soul and is willing to bring Ben's private music alive in the world. Isadora's black and white illstrations are jazz-true from portraits of musicians to wild background that have visual rythms of their own. (Greenwillow, 1979)
Bidemmi is a young artist-writer who lives above an adult artist in Vera William's Cherries and Cherry Pits. Bidemmi has an amazing sense of herself as artist. She loves to draw and from her fanciful drawings come stories--stories of what she has seen, stories of her own life, stories of her imaginings. All of them are rich and detailed and compliment each other, just as art and life should . Ages 5-8. (Greenwillow, 1986; Scholastic)
Sometimes an artist may not be in touch with his inner vision. In The Magic Fan, Keith Baker tells the tale of an oriental boy-builder who is guided by a magic fan to make amazing works of art, until at last, he comes to know his gifts and is guided by his inner magic. Besides the important story theme and its clever execution, I am very impressed with the fact Mr. Baker turns a flap book technique into an art form. (HBJ, 1989)
Claude Clement's Musician from the Darkness tells a tale from the times "even before mankind began to speak". A man with blue-eyes goes with the hunters. He is moved by the sounds of nature to cut reed and play to the marsh birds who surround him. The birds called to his music are killed by the hunters and the horrified musician refuses to play again. He is cast out from the tribe, but a small boy returns to him and they travel off together. Illustrations by John Howe give emotional representation to the disharmony of the musician's view and that of the tribe. Ages 5-8. (Little Brown, 1989)
Fabilist Leo Lionni gives us an excellent view of the importance of artists in the world in Frederick. A family of mice busily collects food for winter, but not Frederick. Frederick instead gathers sun rays, colors and words. Indeed long after the food has been eaten, Frederick's words bring memories of golden sunlight, colorful summers and the beauty of eleoquent poetry to warm the gray winter world. Ages 4-8. (Knopf, 1967)
Once a piece is produced, it becomes something outside the artist and can take different shapes for different people. Paul Fleischman's Rondo in C begins with a small girl playing Beethoven's Rondo. Her attentive listening audience becomes reflective and each person lost in an emotional memory of what the piece represents to them. Artist Janet Wentworth has done an excellent job of capturing the moods both in memory and on the faces of the audience. Ages 4-6. (HarperCollins, 1988, a Charlotte Zolotow book)
In Thomas Locker's The Young Artist, a young, gifted portrait-painter from the era of the Dutch Masters is taken to court to produce a large commissioned piece. Alas, he finds that each subject demands to be represented in a certain way. Compromising his own artistic vision, the artist's work is severely effected. Luckily, his private canvases are discovered, the greatness of his pure work seen and he is allowed to produce meaningfully. He, himself, learns the importance of being true to his own vision. Ages 5-8. (Dial, 1989 )
An artist's view, however, can sometimes get in the way of the art itself. Rhinehart Friesen's Almost An Elephant tells the story of an artist who decides that a lump of clay is to be an elephant. Unfortunately, for the artist, that is not what the piece of clay has in mind. It is only when the artist gets out of the way and allows the material to reveal itself that a beautiful, perfect deer emerges. Ages 3-7. (Hyperion Press, 1987)
In music, one must also be in partnership with one's instrument. In Claude Clement's The Voice of the Wood, a Venetian craftsman makes a cello out of a tree he loves. The craftsman takes his masterpiece to a masked society ball. When a young, famous musician reaches for it, the craftsman warns that only a heart in tune with the voice of the wood can play it. The prideful musician produces only grating noises until finally alone at home he strips himself of his costume, pretensions, and bravado. His music is then so lovely that leafy branches sprout from the cello's neck. Ages 5-8. (Dial, 1988)
In Zekmet the Stone Carver, Mary Stolz contemplates the origins of the Great Sphinx. When the Pharaoh wants a monument to live beyond his time, it is not the proud and haughty vizier who conceives of the splendid monument, it is Zekmet, a humble stone carver, whose lowly station allows him still to be in communion with the world around him. It is while viewing the world that Zekmet sees a lion and realizes the power of symbol that has been given to him. Egyptologist Deborah Norse Lattimore's illustrations are true to the period in her borders which tell the story in hieroglyps, in the colors which represent the setting and in the stylized format of portrature. Ages 6-10. (HBJ, 1988)
The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg is a tribute to the creative imagination which powers all artists. The introduction tells the story of a vanished writer-artist who left only illustrations and the audience is left to imagine the tales. Mr. Van Allsburg's illustrations are worth the proverbial thousand words and since the publication of the book, people of all ages have imagined and created the missing fictions. Ages 5- adult. (Houghton Mifflin, 1984)
Individuality of expression is the subject of Sylvia Fair's The Bedspread. When two ninety year old sisters are bedridden and bored, they decide to amuse themselves by designing a quilt based on rememberances of the home they grew up in. One sister's end of the quilt is bright-colored and emotion filled; the other's is precise and beautifully crafted. Both admire and appreciate the other's work and world view at the end of the project. Ages 4-8. (Morrow, 1982)
The message of Hamilton's Art Show by Lisa Ernst seems to be, don't follow a how-to-book for becoming a famous artist. Hamilton does, and his focus seems to be more on becoming famous than on becoming an artist. Meanwhile his Aunt Nell quietly pursues the tending of her garden. Imagine Hamilton's surprise when his aunt becomes the object of fame! Ages 4-6. (Lothrop, 1986)
Art can be magic. It is in Molly Bang's The Paper Crane. An old, gentle stranger comes to a failing restaurant. Though he proclaims he is poor, the owner feeds him generously. In reward, the stranger folds a paper crane from a napkin which can come to life and dance at the clap of a hand. People come from miles around to see the crane and the restaurant becomes so prosperous that even when the stranger returns, mounts the crane and flies away, people still come to hear the story. Molly Bang's many-colored collages are as magic as the tale she tells! Ages 4-8. (Greenwillow, 1985)
Marcella, the duck, loves to paint more than anything. Night after night she paints the moon in Laura Jane Coats' Marcella and the Moon. At first her duck friends tease her, but when one night the moon does not appear, the frightened ducks run to Marcella. Her artistic observations have given her a knowledge of the world that reaches beyond common pond experience and the duck's begin to appreciate their friend in a new way. Ages 3-6. (Macmillan, 1986)
Emma by Wendy Kesselman is a lonely seventy-two year old woman who is much loved by her large family. When they give her a birthday present of a painting of her hometown, Emma desires to paint the town as she remembers it. The more she paints, the more she is surrounded by friends and places she loved, and her loneliness fades in the vivid colors she has created around her. Award-winning illustrator Barbara Cooney, herself an woman who came to an illustrative career late in life gives perfect expression to the meaning of the book. (Doubleday, 1980)
In Vera B. Williams' Something Special for Me, it's Rosa's birthday and her mother decideds to spend her jar full of hard-earned tips on something of Rosa's choosing. In a time when so many children are flooded with abundance, I appreciate seeing a child in the literature who is economically bound to make choices and find something that will be truly precious to her. And what is precious to Rosa is an accordian whose music can cheer her household. Music and its comfort comes to Rosa again in Williams' later book, Music, Music for Everyone . Ages 4-8. (Greenwillow, 1983 & 1984)
Rachel Isadora's Max is a skillful baseball player who walks his sister to ballet class. Isadora's illustrations show the exhuberant zeal of this young boy who can not stand to just sit in this class, but must join in. In fact, he has so much fun, he is late to his game because he doesn't want to miss the leaps. After the tension of two strikes, he hits a home run and decides that dance class is a great way to warm up before the games. Isadora presents us not only with a picture of a hero who embraces his art with joy, but a male protagonist who goes beyond the traditional boundaries which previously governed his life. Ages 3-7. (Macmillan, 1976)
Sometimes a piece of art becomes a family treasure. This is certainly the case in Patricia Pollaco's The Keeping Quilt. Anna comes to America from Russia with few belongings other than her dress and babushka. When the dress is outgrown, her Mama and all the neighbors makes a quilt from the dress, babushka and other scraps. The quilt becomes a treasure handed from generation to generation used for tablecloth, huppa, baby quilt to welcome and celebrate the continuation of family. Ages 5-8. (Simon and Schuster, 1988)
Molly Bang adapts the traditional story of the Japanese Crane Wife in her re-telling of Dawn. The story begins with a shipbuilder father telling his young beautiful daughter about the Canadian Goose he captured and healed and the strange woman who came to him soon after asking to be a sail-maker. The father marries the young woman who creates special sails in complete privacy. When the man invades this privacy he finds a Canadian Goose at the loom who shudders and flies away with obvious pain at the separation. The tale is told with sadness and remorse and yet Dawn offers to go and bring her back in the boat the father made for the three of them, returning in the spring when the geese come north again. Bang's excellence as tale-teller and illustrator shine through the beautifully detailed boarders and carefully hand-lettered text creating a story that may very well move you to tears. Ages 5-8. (Morrow, 1983)