Art Is... (Bob Raczka's Art Adventures)
Kindergarten-Grade 5-Raczka introduces more than two dozen famous artworks from various time periods and mediums through quality photographs. His selections are as diverse as a Greek vase, a Bridget Riley Op Art painting, an African mask, a Romare Bearden collage, a Louis Comfort Tiffany lamp, and a Pablo Picasso sculpture, allowing children to compare and contrast these famous pieces and broaden their definition of art. While the text and concepts are appropriate for young children and new readers, the quality of the works depicted makes the book suitable for older readers as well. The eclectic collection is woven together with simple rhyming couplets: "Art is a wall" (Lascaux cave paintings), "Art is a frame holding nothing at all" (Eva Hesse's Hang Up), "Art is an island surrounded by pink" (Christo Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude de Guillebon's Surrounded Islands), "Art is how artists get you to think" (Auguste Rodin's The Thinker). Similar in format to Raczka's No One Saw: Ordinary Things through the Eyes of an Artist (Millbrook, 2002), this volume also contains endnotes giving brief facts about each work and/or the artist who created it. An interesting look at the forms art can take.Laurie Edwards, West Shore School District, Camp Hill, PACopyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to theLibrary Bindingedition.