More Favorite Books for the Art Classroom

I’ll admit here that I’m a book fiend. I’ve built quite a library of titles and usually have some kind of literature link in at least one class I’m teaching every day. Incorporating books is effortless; there are so many titles you can connect to a lesson! Incorporating books is enriching; they provide deeper levels of learning into my lessons.
The following books are a little different from that; I read these titles usually at the end of the class period and they are unrelated to any lesson I am teaching. They provide a quiet teachable moment, a glimpse into the lives of the characters in the book and how their lives are enriched by art, or suggests a creative way of looking at the world.
I’ve listed my top three favorite books in a separate post. They stand out high above the rest of the books in this list (in the opinion of my students and myself) so they needed their own space. But the following seven books have proven to be very popular titles for my students as well, and worth sharing with you.

1. Incredible Ned, by Bill Maynard. Incredible Ned, you can see what he says! This causes a series of comical dilemmas… It’s a rhyming book that’s fun to read out loud, but you can get a little winded! This addresses visual art as a language, a form of expressing yourself.

2. Micawber, by John Lithgow. Micawber the squirrel stumbles upon a museum and to his delight he discovers art supplies waiting for him to explore. The look of sheer delight on that squirrel’s face just amazes my students… they can feel it too!

3. Emma's Rug, by Allan Say. Emma is a young artist that amazes the adults around her with her talent. All goes well until her mother washes her little rug. This addresses the question of where artists get their ideas from.

4. Beautiful Oops!, by Barney Saltzberg. A fun interactive book that celebrates making mistakes and using creative problem solving to inspire artwork.

5. Luke's Way of Looking, by Nadia Wheatley and Matt Ottley. A wonderful story, and great example of how artists use emphasis and contrast to tell a story through pictures.

6. Peter's Painting, by Sally Moss. Richly colored images explore the idea of the more you paint, the more you love painting, and the more your imagination soars.

7. Zoom, by Istvan Banyai. Not a storybook, it’s a wordless book that challenges the point of view of the reader. It’s a fun book that has the reader excited to see what’s coming up on the next page.

8. No One Saw - Ordinary Things Through the Eyes of an Artist, by Bob Raczka. Okay, I snuck this book on the list! It’s celebrates how famous artists found the extraordinary from the ordinary.



Okay, that’s my list… I can’t wait to hear your suggestions to expand it!

Three All Time Favorite Books for the Art Classroom

I started compiling a top ten list of my favorite children’s literature that has art themes. These books are not linked to any lessons I teach, they are simply great books I’ll pull out near the end of a class and we’ll have a read. As my top ten grew I noticed that these three books stood out way above the others so I thought I’d take a moment to share them first.

1. The number ONE best book EVER is, of course Art Dog, by Thatcher Hurd. By day Author is a mild mannered guard at the Dogopolis Museum of Art, but on nights when the moon is full he turns into… Art Dog! Every year students ask me to read them Art Dog and over the years I’ve gotten good at dramatic voice inflections and pauses. In the big “fight” scene I make the action 3D by making paintbrush swooshing sounds and moving the book towards them, away from them and ultimately turning the page upside down and back again.

2. Regina’s Big Mistake, by Marissa Moss. Regina has to make a picture of a jungle with the rest of her class but struggles throughout the whole process coming up with ideas of her own and making mistakes every step of the way. Read this book early in the school year. It can be calming for the students who are silently struggling through their art lessons and going through the same frustrations as Regina. Walking in her shoes and seeing how she ultimately resolves all her problems celebrates the problem solving process and encourages students to not give up.

3. I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More!, by Karen Beaumont. If, at the end of this book, someone doesn’t say, “Read it again!” I’ll say, “Wanna read it again?!” And we do! One beautiful singsong book the students finish the rhyme to every page. Very engaging, and oh, what a naughty, naughty little boy that everyone reading the book, including me, wishes he/she could be!

Note: If I have a really challenging class I’ll occasionally start the class with everyone on the floor and we’ll read a book. It calms everyone down and after the book the students are listening so I can introduce the lesson we will be working on that class. Usually I prefer to read when we’re all cleaned up at the end though… I like the idea of them mulling over the book as they walk out of the art room, a quiet celebration of art in the world, in this case, as seen through the eyes of a dog and two boys.

Your school library might have these books already in your building.

Check them out and see what you think… Enjoy!
Now… what are YOUR all time favorites?