If you’ve kept an eye on my blog posts over the months, you know I’m very interested in art books for children. Learning to look with an open mind is a crucial skill in developing real multicultural consciousness, and exposure to art can be great training for kids.

No One Saw (2002) was the first in Bob Raczka’s Adventures in Art series (8 books to date), published by Lerner Publishing. “No one saw flowers like Georgia O’Keeffe,” begins his beautiful exploration of how artists bring us vision through their work. Spare rhyming lines are illustrated by signature works of mostly impressionist-era art. “No one saw music like Marc Chagall. No one saw soup like Andy Warhol,” one double page goes, and indeed we never saw either the same way after those artists gave us their views. Short artist bios follow Raczka’s personal, tender concluding message: “Artists express their own point of view. And nobody sees the world like you.”

Bob Raczka’s endearing text and wise curatorship of the art works he presents make all his books classics. Art-loving parents will long be grateful for his skillful aid in embuing a love of art in their offspring. I’m a big fan of Raczka’s; click here for more posts about his books for kids.

Side by Side: New Poems Inspired by Art from Around the World is a great introduction for children to both art and poetry. Award-winning writer and editor Jan Greenberg, who has published books for kids on Van Gogh, Jackson Pollock, Frank Gehry, Chuck Close, Romare Bearden, Andy Warhol, and Louise Bourgeois, follows up her 2001 Heart to Heart: New Poems Inspired by Twentieth Century American Art with this anthology of international art. Except for a Pushkin poem, all the poems, which appear in both English and their original language, were commissioned to accompany the selected works of art. (Some were written in English and then translated by the authors back into their native languages.)

Greenberg’s new book has stirred up lots of interest in the blogosphere. Elizabeth Bird’s review at Fuse #8 gives us the proper term, ekphrasis, for a poem inspired by a work of art. Here’s Kelly Herold’s review at Big A, little a, and here’s the review Jules posted at 7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast.

Outsider art, while often likened to children’s art, is a challenging topic for children, since outsider artists’ lives are so often deeply troubled. But Susan Goldman Rubin‘s 2004 introduction to the subject for middle school and older kids, art against the odds: from slave quilts to prison paintings (Crown Publishers), is an inspiring testament to how art heals. In four liberally-illustrated chapters she tells stories of people who became artists while encarcerated in mental institutions, prisons (including prisoners of war) and concentration camps; of quilters living in deep poverty; and of K.O.S. (Kids Of Survival), a group of inner city kids whose teacher realized that their defacement of books was in fact an innovative art form. Rubin concludes by describing an exhibit of toys made by children around the world who “are doing what children do in the most desperate circumstances in a creative way.”

Folk art and self-taught art from all cultures are related fields with much appeal to children. North Carolina art dealer Ginger Young is a great resource on self-taught folk art in the southern U.S. Background material about folk art for teachers can be found here. Susan Goldman Rubin’s other art books for children include the 2007 Delicious (Chronicle Books), about American cupcake connoisseur and painter, Wayne Thiebaud.

Elatia Harris‘ post Monday on one of my favorite sites, 3 Quarks Daily, is a long reminiscence on her fascination, beginning at age 9, with things Japanese. Her mom had already introduced her to western art at Boston museums and galleries, but delving into aesthetics Japonesque, she was on her own. Harris’ report on books that helped her explore her interest is evidence that children need adult books as much as adults need children’s books. Through her beloved childhood books and her own imagination, her nascent multicultural awareness led to a profound and lifelong appreciation of art. Here’s an excerpt from her post, but please don’t miss the treat of reading it in its entirety.

I needed a guide to that universe of art and taste that drew me in, and it could not be my mother…”

“Enter Elise Grilli – a woman whom I suppose I never knew, although it does not feel that way. I first encountered her name on the cover of one of my most beloved childhood books, Golden Screen Paintings of Japan. You can see the scan of my personal copy below left – it’s dog-eared the way a book gets if you sleep with it for many years. On the upper right corner, there is ink I spilled from copying something inside it. Akiyama Teruzawa’s big book from Skira, Japanese Painting, was similarly pored over by me, and is now obviously distressed, like the Modern Library edition of The Tale of Genji, written by the world’s first novelist, Lady Murasaki, and translated by Arthur Waley. Nobody in this bunch wrote for children, but in fact they all wrote for me. Especially Elise Grilli.

Here’s Eliata’s description of her growing aesthetic awareness–a great example of the natural (untutored) capacity of a child to resonate with art that arises out of profound awareness:

Trying to find the right way to draw things, I was instinctively attracted to an individualistic painter of wide-ranging genius [the 16th century painter Hasegawa Tohaku], and my first sensations of wonder and bewilderment have stayed with me always. They are the correct response to the daring and naturalism I saw, that I was too young to know I could not as an artist aspire to.

Harris then discusses a Hasegawa 12-panel screen, his early understanding of abstraction, and a one-brushstroke tree trunk that demonstrates how form and content are one!

Regular readers of this blog know I’m a big fan of Bob Raczka’s art books for kids, and his newest one is a special treat–a book of paintings of readers! Artful Reading (Lerner Books) continues Raczka’s winning formula of rhyming lines, great reproductions, and generous author’s notes. His selection of paintings spans five centuries, with subjects of all ages and circumstances caught in the act of reading. The cover art, Picasso’s “Two Girls Reading,” (scroll down at the link for the image) is followed by 22 more paintings, all wonderfully evoking the joys of the printed word. Vermeer’s famous “Woman in Blue Reading a Letter” is here, along with Carl Spitzweg’s charming “The Bookworm” (a man high on a library ladder–and engrossed in a book) and Harlem artist Jacob Lawrence’s “The Library,” packed with readers. Notes on the paintings include such details as books the artists liked to read and obscure factoids about the painters. (Did you know Picasso created almost 34,000 book illustrations?)

“Read while you work. Read while you ride. Read what you want. It’s for you to decide,” Raczka advises, each tip illustrated with a suitable painting. (Edward Hopper’s “Compartment C, Car 293” accompanies “Read while you ride.”) Bob Raczka is a curator extraordinaire who clearly loves children and paintings, and now we know how much he loves reading and books as well. While avid young readers and fledgling artists will doubtless love Artful Reading, I suspect even reluctant readers and artists will be cajoled by the enticing images and rhymes of Rackza’s exhibition-in-a-book. For more from me about Raczka’s books, click here. And here’s another blogger’s take on Artful Reading.

In Where in the World?, Bob Raczka takes young readers on an artist’s tour of six continents “without leaving your chair.” Beginning in Japan (one of Hokusai’s 36 Views of Mt. Fuji) and on to Australia (Christo’s Wrapped Coast), Raczka introduces works by Diego Rivera, Gaugin, Klee, Canaletto and six others. Each gets a double page spread with several paragraphs of text explaining the art and the geographical influence on the artist: Tunesia on Klee, for example.

On the cover and in the back of the book, a map of the world wraps up the tour. One of several tapestries designed by Alighiero e Boetti and woven in the 1980′s by Afghani women using traditional rug-making techniques, the map indicates each country with a portion of its flag and “shows us that people from completely different countries and cultures… can ignore artificial borders and work together to create beautiful works of art.” Another map of the world in the book traces Raczka’s armchair route and gives real mileage between destinations.

Where in the World?, aimed for middle school kids, is packed with fascinating details about the art and how it was made. As always, Raczka presents significant works of art without pretense. Kids experience the work for themselves while enjoying the geography along the way. And for more travel (plus art) books for children, click here.

We have just returned home from a week in London, exploring the city to dropping point! One place we visited was the National Gallery, where we followed the Chinese Zodiac Trail. We knew which animals to look for from retellings of the legendary selection process, such as The Great Race: The Story of the Chinese Zodiac. While looking at the paintings, we learnt a great deal about the differences and similarities in the symbolism attached to the animals in Chinese and Western cultures; and Little Brother, who is passionate about dragons, was overjoyed to discover that his birth sign, the Snake, is also known as the Little Dragon!

In the gallery shop afterwards, we found a delightful picture-book called Pablo the Artist by Satoshi Kitamura, which is an enigmatic exploration of the artistic process and where inspiration comes from – I agree with The Magic of Books‘ review, where PJ Librarian says “you really aren’t sure at this point if Pablo is dreaming or if these landscape characters are actually real” – it’s one of those books which grows with each re-reading as new details are discovered and absorbed. We especially loved the glimpse of infinity provided at the end, having read The Mouse and His Child so recently, where the picture of the dog carrying a tray with a tin of dog food with the picture of the dog carrying a tray etc. etc. was such a recurrent and pivotal theme.

Not Just for Kids recommends Pablo the Artist and some other picture-books which “introduce young readers to some of the world’s masterpieces”, as does Rhyming Mom.

…And I should just add that Pablo The Artist was one of the picture books nomitated for the 2007 Sakura Awards, which Charlotte highlighted in her last post…

Who am I and how do I look to others? Bob Raczka‘s Here’s Looking at Me: How Artists See Themselves, an American Library Association Notable Book for middle readers, stimulates children to explore these two fascinating and important human questions. Fourteen artists’ self portraits, from Velasquez to Harlem painter Jacob Lawrence, introduce children to the many ways that visual artists portray themselves.

Parents and teachers who want kids to explore art on its own terms will find this primer on self-portraits much to their liking. In addition, check out Just Like Me, a multicultural collection of artist self portraits–along with artists’ statements and their childhood photographs–and this art workshop, based on Just Like Me. For some great online ideas about kids’ self-portraits, click here.

Finally, following up on my series of posts on spiritual literacy, here‘s Concord Magazine’s gallery of spiritual self portraits by children.

Buddhists add a sixth sense to the five we ordinarily think of, and it’s thinking itself; to the Buddhist, thoughts impinge on the mind just the way sights, for example, impress the eye. It’s the vibrant interplay of sense organ, sense object, and consciousness that make up our experience of self.

The concept of Bob Raczka‘s More Than Meets the Eye, part of his Adventures in Art picture book series, treats only the five conventional senses, but he engages the mind as a sixth sense in the process. “Have you ever tasted a painting?” he asks, illustrating with Vermeer’s milk jug, Cassatt’s cup of tea, and of course Thiebaud’s frosted cakes. Hockney’s splashing diver, Jamie Wyeth’s stinky pig and Rivera’s tortillas, among others, point out sound, smell, and touch respectively. Works by Vasarely and Chuck Close demonstrate the art of really looking at pictures.

We don’t get Raczka’s charming rhymes in this book, but there is plenty of art food for thought for children and parents alike. Raczka understands that art is an experience, and he serves it up deliciously. In crossing senses, he also crosses cultures. The images and the senses he evokes and inspires are universal.

Patricia Stohr-Hunt’s blog, The Miss Rumphius Effect (where she’s known as Tricia) has a wonderful list of sense-evoking books for kids.

Art is an especially direct path to multicultural consciousness: the stretch an artist challenges us with is very like the stretch of seeing another culture afresh. Yet while there are wonderful art project books and books that present ideas about art, surprisingly few present actual works of art in a way that children can relate to directly. Bob Raczka’s Adventures in Art series, published by Lerner Publishing’s Millbrook Press imprint, does a great job of this, presenting real works of art with simple, often rhyming text. “Art is draped, art is chiseled, art is pasted, art is drizzled,” he explains in his 2002 Art Is. It features 27 works of art spanning the spectrum of time and genre from Bridget Riley and Christo to the Lascaux cave paintings and a mask from the Cameroon and concludes, “Art is an island surrounded by pink. Art is how artists get you to think.” Brief notes on each artist follow.

Raczka goes well beyond depicting famous works of art in an accessible context; his imagination and respect for kids make his series a work of art itself. Tune in again soon for more on good art books for kids, including more Bob Raczka books.