Through poems and poetic prose pieces, acclaimed children's author Arnold Adoff celebrates that uniquely American form of music called the blues. In his signature "shaped speech" style, he creates a narrative of moments and joyous music, from the drums of the ancestors, the red dirt of the plantations, the current of the mighty Mississippi, and the shackles, blood, and tears of slavery. Each chop of the ax is a beat, each lash of the whip fashions another line on the musical staff. But each sound also creates the chords and harmonies that preserve the ancestors and their stories, and sustain life, faith, and hope into our own times.

Byron Barton, the celebrated creator of numerous picture books for very young children, including Trucks, My Bus, and My Car, builds a house, step by step, right before your eyes

A machine digs a big hole. A cement mixer pours cement. Carpenters put up walls. Bricklayers, electricians, plumbers, and painters do their part. Through brilliantly simple words and pictures a house is built.

You can almost do it yourself by carefully noting the steps depicted in each bright, brisk, clearly delineated picture . . . With independently interesting pictures and a definite, sunny personality, a very fine piece of work indeed.--Kirkus Reviews

Named a Notable Book for Children by the American Library Association

Children are often told that art matters--but the truth is that very often it's hard to know why it really does. Museum visits can feel like a chore as does having to learn the names of the big artists we're all meant to love (but perhaps don't quite in the way we're supposed to). This is a huge pity because--grasped the right way--art has a deep capacity to improve our lives and offer us a sense of joy and mental well-being.

Here is a guide to art for children with a difference: in a tone that's kindly, informative, unstuffy, and at times rightly irreverent, this book explains how art can fit into our lives. We learn where the impulse to make art comes from, what art to look at in certain moods, how to go around a museum without getting bored, and why--without even realizing it--we all become experts in art by decorating our first bedrooms.

This is an innovative guide to the importance of art, written in a way that will enchant children and, along the way, teach their favorite adults one or two vital things as well.

A new addition to Mudpuppy's successful "I Heart" Activity Book series, I Heart Architecture with Frank Lloyd Wright Activity Book is an exciting collaboration with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. This 64 page activity book is filled with guided activities based on Frank Lloyd Wright's buildings, window designs, furniture, and more. Draw, color, and design works of your very own
- 64 full-color pages
- Trim: 7 x 8.75" (17.8 x 22 cm)
- Ages 6+

Claude Monet was a key figure in the Impressionist movement that transformed French painting. This new addition to Mudpuppy's successful "I Heart" Activity Book series, the I Heart Monet Activity Book is 64 pages filled with guided activities to draw, color, and design inspired by many of Monet's most famous works of art
- 64 full-color pages
- Trim: 7 x 8.75" (17.8 x 22 cm)
- Ages 6+
- Includes: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

A playful picture-book tour of the Swedish alphabet, in which curious characters explore the American Swedish Institute

A is for "Akta dig Look out " And when you do, you'll see the nyckelharpa, or keyed fiddle, that Axel's father made--which followed Axel from Sweden to America. You'll also find Axel, a snappy dresser, with his umbrella and bowler hat. He's one of the inquisitive characters who will accompany you on these pages, guiding you through the twenty-nine letters of the Swedish alphabet. Each letter does something exciting. C is "Cirkulera Go round and round " And for D, "Dansa Dance "

This fun introduction to the Swedish alphabet, a romp from A to Z (and then to to ), is also a delightful tour of the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis, a cultural center alive with stories past and present. Artifacts from the museum's collection are charmingly rendered in watercolor and animated by whimsical pen-and-ink characters that draw readers from page to page. Tara Sweeney and Nate Christopherson, a mother and son collaborative team, create magical realism in A to Z , their first picture book. Their irreverent curiosity delights and begs a timeless question--how can exploration and discovery help us grow?

Celebrate the many faces of children around the world.

In this sequel to the tour de force children's art-history picture book If Picasso Painted a Snowman, Amy Newbold conveys nineteen artists' styles in a few deft words, while Greg Newbold's chameleon-like artistry shows us Edgar Degas' dinosaur ballerinas, Cassius Coolidge's dinosaurs playing Go Fish, Hokusai's dinosaurs surfing a giant wave, and dinosaurs smelling flowers in Mary Cassatt's garden; grazing in Grandma Moses' green valley; peeking around Diego Rivera's orchids in Frida Kahlo's portrait; tiptoeing through Baishi's inky bamboo; and cavorting, stampeding, or hiding in canvases by Henri Matisse, Andy Warhol, Frida Kahlo, Franz Marc, Harrison Begay, Alma Thomas, Aaron Douglas, Mark Rothko, Lois Mailou Jones, Marguerite Zorach, and Edvard Munch. And, of course, striking a Mona Lisa pose for Leonardo da Vinci.

As in If Picasso Painted a Snowman, our guide for this tour is an engaging beret-topped hamster who is joined in the final pages by a tiny dino artist. Thumbnail biographies of the artists identify their iconic works, completing this tour of the creative imagination.