Pablo the Artist - Hardcover

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Rezensionen

K-Gr. 2. Pablo the elephant has a painting due at his art club but is sadly uninspired. Heading into the country to tackle a landscape, he paints an oak tree on a grassy field, and, sleepy, lies down for a nap. While he's snoozing, a sheep comes along and paints more delicious-looking grass, a squirrel adds a few nuts to the tree, some bees add flowers, and a passing wolf paints the woodland creatures in front of the tree. In an amusing twist, the elephant wakes up to an unadorned canvas--he's been dreaming! But now he knows exactly what to paint. Pablo's bucolic masterpiece ends up as the star of the art club exhibition. (And who's at the opening? The woodland creatures from his dream.) Kitamura exhibits a wonderful, distinctive use of line and color in his cartoonlike, stylized artwork. Hilarious visual details and comical touches abound in this clever story that playfully flips reality. Karin Snelson
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Kindergarten-Grade 2–The Hoof Lane Art Club is preparing for an exhibition of their work, and it is Pablo the elephants dream to participate, but he is suffering from artists block. After trying his hand at every sort of painting from still life to abstract, he heads for an empty field to attempt a landscape. He paints a simple tree, eats lunch, and falls asleep. In his dream, Pablo is visited by various animals, each with a perspective that improves his painting. When he wakes up, he creates a masterpiece. The story lacks the humor of Kitamuras previous books and is disappointing. However, the illustrations are strong and the expressiveness of the characters lends much to the telling. Pablo is an earnest fellow, and the fact that he can still paint with his trunk while his hands are shoved in his pockets in frustration is a visual device used to great effect. The message that art is not created in a void might be missed by younger readers. However, the book offers a good platform from which to question children about where our ideas and inspirations come from, and as such would be suitable for storytime or classroom reading.–Kara Schaff Dean, Needham Public Library, MA
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