A Child's Book of Play in Art

A Child's Book of Art

by Lucy Micklethwait

A collection of more than seventy reproductions of works of art from all over the world encourages children to imagine living in a castle, making faces, or snuffling with a pig, as they establish an appreciation of art

Genres: Art, Picture Books, Childrens

48 pages, Hardcover

Published September 1, 1996

Reviews

[Lisa Vegan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a huge fan of Lucy Micklethwait's art books for children. I just checked and I’m actually shocked that, even though I’ve got a bunch of her books on my to-read shelf, that this is only the third book by her that I’ve actually read. The first two made such a huge impression on me. I love art books geared to kids and Micklethwait’s are among the best available. The book(s) are a wonderful way to introduce children to famous artists and their art.

I love how in this book so many paintings from different artists, styles, and periods are included.

I thought it was terrific how for certain pictures, portions of them were shown separately for in depth viewing.

Little projects for kids and all reading the book are included, and I thought it was ingenious that they don’t all involve kids creating art of their own, as is typical with these types of books. They also include such things as story telling and problem solving.

I enjoyed many of the included paintings. One inclusion I loved (that is new to me) is Roy Lichtenstein’s Bedroom at Arles, painted a bit more than a century after van Gogh’s almost identically named painting, and how children are encouraged to notice the differences between the two paintings. I do love the van Gogh painting.

[FM Family · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a cool book for getting a young kid to engage with art without feeling like you are being forcing it. My 2 year old liked looking through this book and asking/answering questions about the different pictures. She REALLY loved the picture of the lemons, and pretending to eat them all up. Made me interested in others in the series, as it helps to develop the way you'd ideally want to go through a gallery with a kid - what's this, what's that, which do you like, etc.

[Eva Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

So Mimi got me this one for Christmas, and BOY, does she have good taste! This is all paintings, and it's BIG, like Mama's art books, but it's not real heavy so I can look through it, no problemo!
And there's a LOT of great art in this one. And some of them are like stories, and a few are games like I Spy where you need to find stuff. And it's also got good words. And it's got all the important facts at the end. So this one has some of EVERYTHING.
So how did Mimi know this would be a great book? Because she's MIMI!!!!

[jenna Hudrlik · Rating 5 out of 5]

caroline thinks this book is great - it has different activities to do with a bunch of different famous paintings. the book has a nice variety of paintings and artists and it kept both of our attention - also the big size of the book was nice.