Review by Booklist Review
PreS-K. McDonnell, creator of the Mutts comic strip, offers this slim story that owes its concept to Crockett Johnson's classic Harold and the Purple Crayon (1955). McDonnell begins with wordplay: This is Art, read the words above an image of a young boy. And this is art, read the words on the following page, located above a rainbow of watercolor swirls. On the following spreads, McDonnell's rhyming text follows Art, the boy, as he wields his crayons, pencils, and brushes with gleeful abandon, creating joyful swirls, zigzags, and doodles that eventually form a neighborhood scene, which he enters in his dreams when he falls asleep. The story is slender, and the rhymes occasionally seem cloying: Art stares at the paper and uses his noodle to conjure up a perfect doodle. Peter Reynolds' The Dot (2003) offers more substantive stories about kids creating art. Still, the scenes of Art at work exude a contagious, freewheeling energy that may inspire children to grab their own crayons and let their imaginations loose on paper. --Gillian Engberg Copyright 2006 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Art serves as a boy's name and favorite pastime in this cheerful sequence, which echoes Crockett Johnson's Harold and the Purple Crayon. McDonnell (The Gift of Nothing) lures readers along with antic visuals and a catchy rhyming text about "Art and his art/ Can you tell them apart?" The boy stands about an inch-and-a-half tall in the squarish pages, and in one Jackson Pollock-esque spread, he is indeed covered in his medium. Wearing his blue baseball hat backward and attired in Dennis the Menace fashion, he reaches with a brush to fill the vast white space all around him with red, yellow and blue daubs and spatters, zigzags and spirals, drips and dots. Then he grabs a thick black pencil and doodles a flat house, a basic tree and a cartoon dog. All this activity wears him out, and when he wakes from a nap, he sees his creations tacked to the fridge: "Held there by magnets/ (stars and a heart)/ Put there by mother/ 'Cause mother loves Art." The hero, drawn neatly in a clean black line, with his compact body, shock of hair and giant smile, recalls everybody from Richard Outcault's Yellow Kid to Bill Watterson's Calvin. McDonnell takes a familiar topic-an imaginative boy who loves to draw-and injects this volume with an exuberant comic-strip sensibility. Ages 3-6. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 3-In a play on words that carries throughout the story, Art, a young boy, joyfully tries his hand at all kinds of art. He "DRAWS SCRIBBLES THAT SQUIGGLE," "SPLOTCHES WITH BLOTCHES," "ZIGS" and "ZAGS," doodles and dogs, and so much more. His creations, rendered in watercolor and crayon, extend from the drizzles on the title page to swirls and curls and Jackson Pollock-like spreads until the doodles become a picture in which Art and his dog blast off for the moon: "THERE'S NO STOPPING ART...WHEN ART IS INSPIRED." He falls asleep amid his work and awakens to find it on the refrigerator, "PUT THERE BY MOTHER 'CAUSE MOTHER LOVES ART." The rhyming text is brief and takes a backseat to the little boy's exuberant pictures. This story, along with Peter H. Reynolds's The Dot (Candlewick, 2003), can free up hesitant artists to let their talent shine.-Marianne Saccardi, formerly at Norwalk Community College, CT (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
This is Art / and this is art / Art and his art / Can you tell them apart?"" A boy scampers across the pages, drawing and painting, a little like Harold of purple-crayon fame. Not all the rhymes scan, and the fanciful book's earthly ending (he wakes to find his art hung on the fridge) is a letdown, but McDonnell's restrained exuberance is winning. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Art's art moves and explodes. There are splatters, squiggles and curls, zigs, zags and doodles and loads of color. After all that energetic creativity, Art "flops in a heap / and among his creations / he falls fast asleep." When he awakens, his drawings are on the refrigerator, placed there by his mother because she loves Art. McDonnell's minimalist rhyming text flies across the pages in large bold block letters. Even the youngest reader can discern the basic pun, and more sophisticated readers will enjoy finding deeper variations. It is both a slight tale of a creative child and a glimpse into the nature of art. The primary color illustrations are exuberant and joyful and seamlessly match the text. Art runs from page to page with paintbrush or colored pencil, drawing as he goes, paying direct homage to Harold and the Purple Crayon. Harold now has a perfect companion in Art. Sheer delight. (Picture book. All ages) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
