One of the many themes this coming school year will be the Science of Colour. With that in mind, I looked for some new books over the weekend and purchased four for the classroom library.
Little Tommy, in The Art Lesson by Tomie dePaola, wants to be an artist when he grows up, so he is exhilarated to learn that he'll have art lessons each week in first grade. Little Tommy soon discovers that the art class does not live up to his expectations. Through compromise with the teacher, Tommy is allowed to follow through with his dream.
Leo Lionni's classic little blue and little yellow was developed while Lionni was on a train trip with his grand-kids. He had no drawing materials with him on the trip so he began tearing circles of colour from a magazine. He then orally told the story to the children. Much later he wrote the story down to share it with the public. This story has many layers of meaning, all illustrated with spots of colour, from the story of friendship to the exploration and discovery of colour through feelings and prejudice. We are shown Little Blue as a ragged circle of blue on the white page. Later we meet his mother and father, friends, but especially Little Yellow who lives across the street with Mama Yellow and Papa Yellow. Using only these simple shapes, Lionni shows the children at school and at play.
Matthew's Dream also by Lionni is about a poor Mouse named Matthew. While he is at a museum he decides he wants to be an artist. As sleep comes that night, he dreams of being an artist and no longer being poor. The next day he takes up painting. Eventually, with hard work and determination his dream comes true and he is a world famous artist. The important message of this story is that dreams are something to aspire to but it comes with hard work.
I also purchased, Purple, Green, and Yellow which is an especially fun book. The main character, Bridget, is a artist wanna be who loves magic markers and asks her mother for a box of 500 water colour markers. The book takes us all back to the days of coloring and expressing our creativity in both acceptable and unacceptable ways.
I look forward to witnessing the budding artists in my class in the fall.
