"I'm the Best Artist in the Ocean" by Kevin Sherry (Dial, 9780803732551,
$16.99, 32 pages, for ages 2 to 6)
This is a great new picture book for preschool-age kids, especially ones who
enjoy making art. It features a playful squid who loves to draw and paint
(even underwater!) and who likes to show off all his artistic skills. (He
even draws a very artistic little mustache for himself.) He's the best
artist in the ocean!
On each page, the squid tries out a different art style: he colors, he
cartoons, and he gets a little cubist with his pictures of turtles, fish,
and manta rays. All the while, the squid works toward completing his
"masterpiece." It's unveiled as a whale-sized mural painted on the side of,
you guessed it, a whale! (When a gruff shark swims by and tells the squid
that he's really making a MESS, the squid happily replies that he is, in
fact, making a "MESS-terpiece!")
Kevin Sherry created his illustrations for this underwater art-fest using
layers of painted watercolors and cut-paper fish sandwiched between layers
of glass. (An author's note claims the glass was salvaged from the windows
of sunken pirate ships and the inked used was 100% fresh squid ink, but it
seems safe to say that those are artistic exaggerations.) The images are
bold and fun and make clever references to the jaggedy murals of Picasso and
Juan Miro.
"I'm the Best Artist in the Ocean" offers great encouragement to creative
kids: give it as a gift with a big box of crayons or a bucket of sidewalk
chalk, then stand back and watch them make their mess-terpieces!
(For ages 2 to 6)
Review by
Mark David Bradshaw, June 26, 2008
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