Paul Cezanne (Revised Edition) (Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists)

Homeschooling art has been one of my greatest homeschool successes. Specifically, we instituted “Artist of the Month” as part of our homeschool curriculum. Information learned stayed learned (always a victory).First, I bought the "Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Artists" book about our Artist of the Month. We own 22 of these. They are uniformly excellent. Images featuring the artist’s most famous work are interspersed with the artist’s life story.Second, I bought poster board and those little Dover booklets of postcards featuring art by our Artist of the Month (where available - and Dover does carry a lot of them). I let the kids go to town on making a poster of the Artist of the Month using these supplies. The important point here was process not product, to get them to interact with the images, not to get them to produce the perfect poster. This poster would then be on display throughout the month.(Previous months’ posters landed under my daughter’s bed. One day, she showed one of these posters to a friend. I heard from the mom shortly thereafter. “Raquel says your daughter has pictures of naked ladies under her bed?” Picasso, I think.)Third, I bought more books!We were fond of the "Smart About Art" series. Each book also features just one artist. We have 8 of those. These books are at a slightly higher reading level than the "Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Artists" books, but only very slightly. Colorful pages are even more eye popping than those in the "Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Artists" series.For Pablo Picasso and Leonardo da Vinci, the kids really liked the Ibi Lepscky books. The titles are the same as the authors’ names. The Picasso book is a particular favorite because of an image in which Picasso, devoid of art supplies as a child, paints his younger sister with egg yolk just before the family is due to leave for church services.Storybooks featuring the artists were always a big hit. I can specifically recommend the following to round out your curriculum:Laurence Anholt’s books feature a story in which the artist interacts with a child. There are vibrant images, but I wouldn’t count on these books alone to provide an education about any one artists. The books we own and love include:- Matisse: The King of Color- Cezanne and the Apple Boy- Degas and the Little Dancer- Camille and the Sunflowers- Leonardo and the Flying Boy- Picasso and the Girl with a Ponytail- The Magical Garden of Claude MonetAlso consider Anholt’s marvelous book Anholt’s Artists Activity Book.James Mayhew wrote an excellent series in which our girl Katie interacts not with the artists but with the subjects of the paintings! Outstanding storytelling, clever images. Again, these books are a great supplement to a homeschool art curriculum, but I would not use them as stand alone books. We own and love these:- Katie and the Sunflowers- Katie and the Mona Lisa- Katie and the British Artists- Katie and the Starry Night- Katie and the Spanish Princess- Katie Meets the ImpressionistsGood Luck and Happy Homeschooling!

I was incredibly excited to receive this book in order to read it to my 1st and 2nd grade art classes as we begin still life painitngs and learning about the incredible artist, Paul Cezanne. Being a Scholastic title, I assumed all the material would be appropraite for an Elementary Public School. Unfortunately, page 31 has a photograph of "The Bathers," 1899-1904. Oil on Canvas. Although the image is portrayed from a distance, it is still obvious that they are nude folks at a lake. SOOOO disapointed!!! Principal gave it a thumb down. Not worth the potential issues from parents.

The book arrived on time in a great condition. The contents of it iseducational, engaging, with plenty of jokes and child-friendly quirky twists. But I am unhappy with the quality of the artist’s works’ reproduction. There are no full-page poster-looking photos of Cezanne’s paintings. And ones that are present are overwhelmingly surrounded by the comics characters.Very age-appropriate, very informative, engaging. But needs more photos.My kids love books on Art History. At 7 and 3.5, they listen to college-level textbooks. But it will be a couple years before they get excited about ‘Paul Cezanne (Getting to Know...)’

This book - as well as every other one in the "Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists" series -- is a fantastic purchase. It puts a creative spin on the teaching of art to children and makes the artists' stories come to life in a really "current" and cool way . . . using cartoons / graphics, great photos of masterpieces and easy-to-understand language. My son is 8 years old and loves them . . . I think these books are appropriate for a wide range of ages (from 4 / 5 up to 10 / 11, maybe even older).

These books are the best for teaching about artists. We love them at our house. They are funny, creative, and entertaining, but you still learn so much from it. I keep buying more and ore of them!