Talking with Artists

Bibliographic Information
Cummings, Pat.1992. TALKING WITH ARTISTS. Bradbury Press. New York, New York. ISBN 0027242455.

Plot Summary
This is actually a non-fiction book about the lives of illustrators (and some authors) of picture books. Compiled by illustrator Pat Cummings, each author gives a biref autobiography about their life and answers some of the more popular questions children of all ages have about the process of making a picture book.

Critical Analysis
Although the concept of learning about illustrators is a fantastic idea, this realization has much to be desired. The sheer repetion found in this book in both the lifes of illustrators and the questions that are asked about their work makes for dry reading by the third illustrator. Out of the fourteen featured illustrators, all claimed they grew up drawing. The commentaries offered little variety except for Lane Smith, who enhanced his autobiography with wit and zany doodlings. The majority of illustrators were encouraged to continue to draw at a young age by either family, a teacher or a mentor. Although children might like the predictability of the book, fears of a child reading about only one illustrator and shelving the rest of the book could be more common than reading the book from cover to cover. This book does inspire young artisits with words. The sample pictures the illustrators chose to include are more impressive than suggesting..."this is how I drew then, so you will be able to learn, too."

Review Excerpt
School Library Journal: “Young artists will learn a lot; teachers and other children will also love it. Well designed and well conceived, this book will be welcomed in all those classrooms in which children's literature has become central to the curriculum.”

Connections
Building Visual Literacy: Have students do an illustrator study from one of the authors such as David Wiesner. Read several of his books such as:
Honest Andrew ISBN 015235672X
Sector 7 ISBN 0395746566
Floatsam ISBN 0618194576

Cloze Procedure
After reading several of an artists books, you could perform the cloze procedure with unknown words. For example, in studying David Weisner, you could choose to cover any of the following words and have students try to figure out the meaning of the missing word.
pg. 84 fascinated
appealing
interchangable
captivating
exotic
pg. 85 frustration
murals
conventional
agricultural
obvious
chuckles
pg. 86 discouraging
uninspiring
oceanography