Adventures in cartooning Characters in action!

Gr 2-5-Continuing in their adventures, a knight and her horse, Edward, are thrown into a quest to save the king, only to find that his castle has been taken over by a movie director. Although the book touches on topics such as facial expressions, body language, and proportions, it teaches very little overall and instead, much like other entries in the series, focuses on promoting creativity through zany scenarios and humorous characters. The drawing style is simple and appealing and can be easily mimicked by budding artists. However, it is one thing to show interesting characters, but quite another to teach how to draw them. Children will appreciate the humor, but some will be disappointed by the lack of instruction. Consider purchasing where the original is popular.-Peter Blenski, Greenfield Public Library, WI (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

This is a Zen sort of art book. It teaches advanced art techniques while hardly talking about drawing at all. If the book had an index, there would be entries for "Boat-a-saurus" and "Clown-a-clops" and "Bandit raccoon" and "Witch, 7 years old." There are more characters on the cover of the book than in some entire novels. The authors write: "the ones we couldn't fit INSIDE the book are here, on the back cover!" There's so much going on in this drawing book that there's barely any room for drawing tips. Most of the drawing lessons appear between pages 48 and 53. The rest of the book is an adventure story with knights and frogs and, for some reason, a movie director. And yet, the drawing tips are remarkably useful. The authors explain in just a few panels how a peanut shape can be turned into every possible character or personality type. It goes without saying that they draw dozens of sample characters. This is, in short, a very silly book. The About the Authors section takes up two whole pages and contains no information about the authors. But it has a cowboy and a robot and a monster with two heads, and for fans of the series, that will be more than enough. Hysterical--and useful. (Nonfiction. 6-12)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.