A day with no crayons

PreS-Gr 2-Liza loves her crayons, but she has a bit of a one-track mind where color is concerned. She classifies the whole world according to the shades she finds in her crayon bucket. When she runs out of paper, she takes the next logical step and colors on the wall, prompting her mother to take away her drawing tools for the rest of the day. The situation looks bleak (and literally gray, in the illustrations), until Liza goes for a walk and discovers the colors of the natural world. Mud, leaves, bricks, and petals become her new media as she assembles life-size collages wherever she goes. It comes as no surprise when she declares at bedtime: "I think I can go one more day with no crayons." There is no shortage of picture books that celebrate artistic creativity, but this one has an interesting twist. So much of childhood art is commoditized and children spend so much time inside that the invitation to look to nature for both inspiration and materials is a refreshing one. This title could also serve as an introduction to modern art (Liza inadvertently creates a Jackson Pollack mud puddle at one point) or be paired with Barbara Cooney's Miss Rumphius (Viking, 1982) for an artsy Earth Day celebration.-Rachael Vilmar, Eastern Shore Regional Library, MD (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Having her crayons confiscated after an unfortunate incident with a wall turns out to be a real horizon-expander for a budding artist. Liza treasures her turquoise, adores apricot and flips over fuchsia, but when she decorates a blank wall after running out of paper, her mom takes all of these bright colors away--literally, in the illustrations, as Liza and her surroundings instantly fade to dull grays. Happily, that doesn't last long; colors leech back in to the world as Liza not only finds vibrant new hues in mud, flowers and grass, but discovers the pleasures of assembling pebbles, petals and other small found items into a beach, a sunset and other artistic constructs. By the time she gets her crayons back that evening, she's been liberated from her dependence on them, and is looking at the world with new eyes. Crayon-wielders aren't the only ones who will benefit from this exercise in thinking outside the box, whether flip-top or figurative. (Picture book. 6-8) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.