Noah has been into drawing and painting for a while now, though to be honest, we can’t quite make out what he has drawn or painted most of the time. When I came across Peter H. Reynold’s books at the library, I couldn’t resist borrowing them, to encourage Noah to keep working on his “art”. (I still haven’t found Ish, which will complete the Creatilogy series, but oh well.)
We thoroughly enjoyed both The Dot and Sky Colour, because of their simple messages: everyone can be an artist, and there is no fixed colour for everything.
In The Dot, Vashti can’t think of what to draw, and her teacher encourages her to “just make a mark and see where it takes you”. Sage advice, and a good reminder for all of us to just take the first step, rather than sit passively, and wait for inspiration to strike us. Vashti doesn’t quite seem to agree with her, and jabs at the paper with a marker, perhaps in a bid to provoke her teacher, but is surprised when her teacher examines it carefully, and asks her to sign it. She is even more taken aback when she returns to class the next day, and sees her dot in a frame, hanging above her teacher’s desk. That was enough to motivate her, and she goes on to create an entire series of dots, in various different styles.
I thought it was particularly sweet that Vashti encourages another young artist in the same way her teacher had, when he confesses that he can’t even draw a straight line, and she gently asks him to show her, then to sign his name on it. The student has become the teacher, and the story has come full circle rather beautifully.
Noah seemed to have been inspired by the story, and the next time we gave him some paper and coloured pencils, he started drawing plenty of dots, of various sizes. He also asked to use his Do-a-Dot markers one morning, and spent quite a bit of time stamping dots all over the paper.
The Dot
Noah making plenty of dots
Marisol, the young artist in Sky Colour, is eager to work on a collage with her classmates, and takes on the task of painting the sky. However, she discovers that the colour blue is missing from the box of paint, and panics. While mulling over her problem, she realises that the sky is made up of many different colours other than blue, and takes inspiration from the beautiful versions of the sky that she sees that evening, to come up with her own multi-coloured sky. Read the book to see the gorgeous end-product!
Sky Colour is a brilliant reminder for all of us parents who sometimes forget to encourage our little ones to be creative. As adults, we often have a fixed idea of what colour everything should be, and restrict our kids to using only those colours, while reminding them to colour within the lines.
Sky Colour
Happy reading!
Buy the Book The Dot on Amazon The Dot on Book Depository Sky Colour on Amazon Sky Colour on Book Depository
Check out the previous Friday Flips posts HERE. I’ve also created a photo album on Facebook with some other good reads, and will be updating it whenever I come across more books that we enjoy. Do pop by for a look HERE.
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