Drawing sports figures

Gr 1–3—This series covers some kid favorites and the pictures pop off its glossy pages, but it has no further appeal. The books start right in on the drawings, with no preamble. To the left of each spread is a picture of, for example, a standing parakeet, surrounded by facts: "A parakeet is a type of small parrot./This parakeet likes to eat seeds./Parakeets can be gray, blue, white, green, or yellow./He has four toes on each foot" (Pets and Farm Animals). Opposite are four illustrated steps for creating a line drawing of the creature, culminating in a cartoon version of it in flight, making one wonder why the preceding photograph was included. This formula becomes increasingly ridiculous when a real person, dressed as a zombie, holding a staff, etc., is the basis for a cartoon or manga counterpart. Furthermore, the final drawings are often too complicated to have been created using the recommended four-step process. [Page 94]. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.