Customer Reviews

Morris the Artist

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Poor Morris can't bear to part with the gift of paints he brought the birthday boy. The tiny package grows and weighs on Morris until he is unable to enjoy the party. When he's finally ready to give it --the birthday boy has gone on to his other presents. Morris opens the paints and soon has the whole party joining in creating fantastical painting on paper and on themselves. The art draws the reader in, it's peculiar, but appealing with lots of different perspectives, the artist has fun with the sizes of things. A lovely book.

The good things: The art is eye-catching, the colors work well togther, and it looks, well, artsy, which is good, since it's about a boy who wants to spend all his time painting. Morris is supposed to give Benjamin a birthday present, and at first he doesn't want to. As he sees more things he wants to do, the present gets visually bigger as holding onto it is a bigger problem for Morris. The author presents the stress of a young child's birthday party pretty accurately (at least from the observations of this mother).

The bad things: The story is going along well, and then it just ends in what feels like the middle. If you take out the text and look at it, you're left scratching your head and going, "huh?" The action doesn't wind down or come to a conclusion or anything. It's a bit disconcerting. Also, the kids' faces in the pictures don't look like kids (abstracted or otherwise).

Overall the pictures are fun, but I think the text could have been tweaked just a bit to make it better.

As a second grade teacher I was asked to preview this book by our local librarian. I like the story a lot, that of a boy who choses a birthday present for a friend which is what he would want and then has a hard time giving it up. I think most of us can relate to the story which is charming. But I feel the drawings are a little dark for this age group and make the book less accessible than it would be with more conventional illustrations. Having the characters change size works for Alice but here is just scary. I also feel giving the protagonist an unusual name "Morris" - not a popular choice for kids in this century - further distances the reader. The illustrations are wonderful and I can think of a few stories I would love to have this artist illustrate, just not this one.

If you're one of those every-minute-must-be-organized parents, if your kid doesn't do ANYTHING that isn't supervised by an adult, if you include a helmet for anything s/he does out-of-doors, then you won't "get" this story. But all the more reason that you should buy it!
Segal creates a story in which a child behaves in a naturally selfish way -- getting a present for another kid that he himself would like -- and proceeds to create in a naturally giving way -- all the kids expend creative energy in the resulting play. This means the story involves more than a little chaos. Like actual kids, the children in this story are simultaneously self-centered and giving, ordered and disheveled, predictable and wildly imaginative. And out of the chaos comes (gasp!) something productive -- fun and loads of creative energy.
This might be better for you than for your kids, but it can't hurt anyone to engage in a little spontaneous creativity.