A Child's Book of Art: Great Pictures - First Words - Hardcover

An enchanting alternative to Scarry's clumsily drawn ``Word Books'': an author whose specialty is introducing children to fine art (I Spy: An Alphabet in Art, 1992) presents almost 30 popular topics (including family, pets, action words, shapes, opposites, seasons, faces, ways to travel, ``A Time to Play,'' and, finally, ``A Time for Peace'') illustrated with handsomely reproduced paintings from six continents and many periods. With remarkable felicity, she arrays works in disparate styles into spacious, elegantly harmonious topical spreads; e.g., four rather quiet vignettes of ``Wild Animals'' on the left (a D rer hare, a tortoise from a Turkish manuscript, an aboriginal Australian kangaroo, and a tiger by Henri Rousseau) are balanced by a vibrant, full-page assemblage of ``lots of animals'' (a 16th-century Indian painting). A sensible note encourages parents and teachers to ``treat these pictures as you would those in any other picture book''; the captioning words lead beautifully into many concepts that might be discussed--e.g., on the ``Five Senses'' spread, a 17th-century parent is ``smelling'' as she changes a diaper; a Cassatt child is ``seeing'' herself in a mirror; Michelangelo's Adam is ``touching'' God. Full citations for the art. A delightful, mind-expanding book. (Nonfiction/Picture book. 2+) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Kindergarten-Grade 3-A picture gallery with oversized pages filled with fine-art reproductions with simplistic labels, e.g., "bedroom," "two boys," "rainy," etc. Micklethwait writes in her "Note to Parents and Teachers" that they are to treat these paintings as they would "those in any other picture book." By this she means to experience them for their representational or emotional content and not to be inhibited by the "fine art" halo that too often surrounds such works. And the author merits a special "Bravo!" for her refusal to include sculpture because it "would lose too much of its magic on the printed page." There are more than 100 pictures here, sometimes three or four to a page, sometimes with a full page to themselves. They come from ancient Egypt and modern Europe, from Africa and Central America. It's an extensive collection with the majority from the Western world of the past 600 years. Surprisingly, there are only three female artists represented. The subjects also vary, e.g., "Six Ways to Travel," "More Colors," and "A Time to Sleep." The reproductions are all printed with great clarity and with considerable white space around them to facilitate individual attention. Full information about the original art objects is appended.
Kenneth Marantz, Art Education Department, Ohio State University, Columbus
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.