Customer Reviews

Storybook Art: Hands-On Art for Children in the Styles of 100 Great Picture Book Illustrators (Bright Ideas for Learning)

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I don't know when I've been so excited about a book of hands-on art ideas for kids!! Favorite picture book illustrators are featured in this book for kids age 4-12...with art ideas to match the illustrators' styles and award-winning titles. Each page has a child-drawn portrait of the illustrator, synopses of the book, quote by the illustrator, easy to follow steps and materials, a great variations.

Some of the books and illustrators covered are:
- Storybook Art Includes -
Clare Beaton-How Big is a Pig?.....Stitching Time
Patrick Benson-Owl Babies.....Cross-Hatch & Stipple
Marvin Bileck-Rain Makes Applesauce.....Fancy Words
Jan Brett-Goldilocks & The 3 Bears.....Behind-the-Scene
David Diaz-Smoky Night.....Collage Story
Lois Ehlert-Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.....Letter Collé
Ed Emberley-Drummer Hoff.....Bold Marking
Ian Falconer-Olivia.....Piglet Painting
Wanda Gág-Millions of Cats.....Cat & Mouse
Mort Gerberg-More Spaghetti I Say.....Silly Spaghetti
Clement Hurd-Good Night Moon.....Shoebox Bedroom
Ezra Jack Keats-The Snowy Day.....Snow Collage
David Kirk-Miss Spider's Tea Party.....Clay Tea Set
Leo Lionni-Fish is Fish.....Rub & Cut Scene
Robert McCloskey-Blueberries for Sal.....Blue Fingerdots
Mira Reisberg-Baby Rattlesnake .....Snake Pattern
Faith Ringgold-Tar Beach.....Tankas
John Schoenherr-Owl Moon.....Winter Stencil
Maurice Sendak-Where the Wild Things Are.....Scratch-Color
Dr. Seuss-The Cat in the Hat.....Kid in a Hat
Charles Shaw-It Looked Like Spilt Milk.....Cream Clouds
Chris Van Allsburg-The Polar Express.....Lights & Snow
plus 78 more Great Illustrators of Favorite Picture Books!
You won't believe the resource chapter with illustrators' websites and lists and more lists and awards and birthdays of illustrators and so on.

I especially like all the kids' artworks on the cover and throughout the book. I am sure you will enjoy this one!!!! It's something special.

"Storybook Art" is one of those keepers that can be used over and over again. And not necessarily for the art projects!

As a retired English teacher and current children's librarian, I have held thousands and thousands of books in my hands. This book ranks up there in the very top echelon of most organized books. In fact, the lay-out of illustrators and organization of information is just incredible.

But first, what this book is all about is the creation of art that goes beyond the book itself (on which the art is based) to show children (adults?) just how the illustrator/writer created the artwork so integral to the story. In other words this book contains "over 100 companion art activities matched to children's favorite picture books" (6).

Some examples:
Scratch board art based on Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are," a must-read classic.
Illustrated music--Nancy Winslow Parker's art in "Oh, a Hunting We Will Go"
Tankas to go with Faith Ringgold's "Tar Beach"
Friendship Stick (a likely to-be-treasured keeper) based on the classic "May I Bring a Friend" by Beatrice Schenk De Regniers
Color Outline--Molly Bang's "When Sophie Gets Angry--Really, Really Angry"

The variety of art projects is almost mind-bogling, just as the illustrations on which they are based.

Now the amazing organization. The art is group into four broad categories for projects: paint, draw, cut/collage, and craft/construction with artists in each presented alphabetically. The Chart of Contents in the front of the book provides this information. Also included is the birth dates of each illustrator. Just as teachers have little parties for each child as his/her birthday arrives, so too can the class recognize the illustrator's birthday (which many teachers already do for authors).

However, it is Chapter 5: Resource Guide and Index, which is so fabulous. Here is what the reader will find:
Author/Illustrator Information and Biographic Websites
Publisher Websites
Resource Books--Illustrators and Authors or Picture Books (just a short but handy list)
Illustrator Websites (worth the price of the book!!!)
Picture Book Publishers and ISBN numbers of books in this volume
Quotes and Cites (a quote is used by each illustrator--this shows its source)
Picture Book Awards
Illustrator Index
Author Index
Picture Book Index
Art Activity Index
Easy Index
Art Activity--Page Order Index
Storybook Art Illustrators Hall of Fame (with thumbnail photos)
Bright Ideas Bookshelf (other titles in this series of books about art across the curriculum)

What a dazzling array of books, illustrations, artists, writers, publishers, art activities. Oh my!

Kids favorite books inspire easy art activities for kids. Excellent. I've found that when the kids do art projects that relate to their favorite picture books, they like their books more and want to read them more closely, and more often. They become finely tuned to the illustrations, and certainly this is an inspiration to create their own art. I've got some favorites in this book. One of them is based on Marshmallow the Bunny, where kids try their hand at charcoal drawing. Of course there's an Eric Carle collage from painted paper. And another favorite is Watercolor Snow Collage based on Ezra Jack Keats' "The Snowy Day". Really pretty but still open ended for kids to feel expression of their own. One of the most intriguing projects is one using simple photos the kids take, yes little kids can take pictures!!!, is based on Dare Wright's photography books with her little doll, Edith, and the doll's companion, Mr. Bear. Kids set up scenes with their toys and take digital pictures of them, then print out and tell stories. I did this with some kindergarteners and it was extremely successful. They want to do it all the time. So, why not? If they want to learn to read from their own little picture photo stories, who am I to say no? : ) Excellent for teachers and inspirational for kids.

This is a wonderful book! The projects are simple, yet engage children and bring out their creativity. I am using it to host my own once-a-week art class for my kids and their friends, and we are all really enjoying it (moms and kids). I am able to check out many of the story books from our library, so we read the book and then do the related project. It is amazing how the kids can do the same project, yet each child comes up with a completely different result. We recently did the pressed clay illustration, and the kids spent a long time working on their pictures. The older kids (four 6-year-olds) even made second bird pictures because they enjoyed making the first ones so much. If you need art projects for the preschool through elementary set, this book is fantastic.

I loved the idea about taking stories children love and teaching them about the illustrator. Sometimes the Author is the illustrator and sometimes not. I used this book not only to get the Children to re-read some of their favorite stories but to also learn the tecniques the illustrator used. Excellent learning experience.

Kohl has an amazing ability to take the essence of an illustrator and create a simple to organise and reproduce art activity. As your children grow through this book do look out for other books written by MaryAnn Kohl. They are incredible value for money.

I travel around the country working with childcare people and early childhood teachers (young kids through grade three). They seem to love this book, with its connection to favorite picture books. When kids do art that is in the style or technique of the illustrator, they are more tuned in to the book when they read it again, and they are definitely more tuned in to illustrations in all books. If you value the art of books, so will kids. I'm very happy that educators see the impact art can have on literacy.

My kids are a bit older -- the youngest is a first grader, so they have a few more skills than preschoolers. In my opinion, that makes the projects even more fun.

When I sit down to read a storybook to my family, whether it's an old favorite or something new to us, they love it. Since everybody is old enough to read, they can take turns reading the blurb about the illustrator and giving directions for the project.

Some of the projects relate directly to the illustration style -- for "Harold and The Purple Crayon", for example, you wind out a long, long line of adding machine tape and have the child walk the crayon along the length, stopping to put in destinations and change the drawings. Then I made a video of each of them telling their stories -- they were great, and all different. That project relates directly back to the book.

Other projects are more of a tangent -- for "More Spaghetti, I Say," you boil up a pot of noodles, mix noodles with glue, add glitter and beads and whatever the kids like (shell collection, plastic bugs... nothing valuable, because this is food art and eventually it's going into the trash can. So you aren't mimicking the book's illustration style, but you are playing around in a new and fun way with spaghetti, and the story is funny.

For most of these projects, prepare to get your house messy. Glitter is infernal and persistent; gelatin is a gloppy mess; confetti has a tendency to get tossed from one kid to another. Go with it. The kids are making memories and laughing together? That's what you want.

I'll post some photos of our completed projects in Customer Images -- we have various levels of skill and interest.

I'm very grateful to this book (and its author, and all the illustrators) for giving us some after-school unwinding activities that aren't expensive, aren't difficult, and aren't competitive. Good, messy fun.

I was very excited about this book, but dissapointingly, it seems the kids aren't too interested in trying these out, at least the younger ones. Perhaps older children would be more interested (ages 7 and up)

This is a very good book if you don't have any ideas to connect the artist style with the book you are using - for an art project idea. You can find a similar book to use here and then copy the idea presented. When I purchased this book I thought it was going to be different. I had a particular goal I wanted to accomplish in my art class that I'm going to lead. But this book didn't supply me with what I wanted. I think it's a good book don't get me wrong; it's just it didn't help me in what I was looking for.