Departments : Teaching With Your Librarian :
An Artistic Collaboration
By Sandy Meagher
When collecting your supplies for Youth Art Month, don't forget to stop at the school library
Online Extra: Parent Book Recommendations March 2007
Cave dwelling – student art inspired by prehistoric paintings lines the halls.
Art and the support of the library go hand in hand in our school. What a joy it is working with our art teacher, Nicole Curtis. Her eyes sparkle at the projects she's planning and how we can work together. The great masters are on posters all around her art room and she always complements them with books.
Fine-art introductions
Every time a wonderful book of art appears, I make Mrs. Curtis aware of it. Here are some that she uses in her classes and that students love to borrow.
Look Closer: Art Masterpieces through the Ages by Caroline Desnoëttes (Walker & Company, 2006, ISBN: 0-802-79614-1) is a lift-the-flap book that's great for middle grades. A famous painting is on one page and on the opposite page you lift the flap and find objects or notice types of brush strokes in the picture. Important factual information is included to add to the artist's information on style, and then another flap lifts to show the colors of the artist's palette used in the painting.
A good book to introduce next is Masterpieces Up Close: Western Painting From the 14th to 20th Centuries by Claire d'Harcourt (Chronicle, 2006, ISBN: 0-811-85403-5). Each painting has a page with close-ups of part of the painting that allows students to look more closely and understand the what, how and why behind the painting. This book also includes a lift-the-flap section that gives informative descriptions.
Literary-inspired installation
Books found in your library can inspire an artistic renovation of a space in your school. The hallway through which our students enter school each day was recently transformed into the Cave of Lascaux. Mrs. Curtis introduced students to early cave paintings via the library books Cave of Lascaux: The Cave of Prehistoric Wall Paintings by Brad Burham (Power Kids Press, 2003, ISBN: 0-823-96257-1) and Cave Paintings to Picasso: The Inside Scoop on 50 Art Masterpieces by Henry M. Sayre (Chronicle, 2004, ISBN: 0-811-83767-X).
Musical interludes
Music is also such a creative part of our school community. Our music teacher, Mrs. Locicero, can be heard at bus duty singing in her beautiful voice. As an introduction to musical notes, a wonderful book is Do Re Mi: If You Can Read Music, Thank Guido d'Arezzo by Susan L. Roth (Houghton Mifflin, 2007, ISBN: 0-618-46572-3). An exceptional picture-book biography of Guido d'Arezzo, this gives basic understanding of the origins of musical notation. The artwork in the book is paper collage and is a delight. This biography gives inspiration to persevere in one's daily life as Guido did.
An awe-inspiring book incorporating art and music is Can You Hear It? by William Lach (Abrams, 2007, ISBN: 0-810-95721-3). This book includes a CD that introduces kids to great music through great works of art, and has 13 pictures that set the scene for the music. For example, the painting "On the Southern Plains" by Frederick Remington is presented in the book with the question, "Can you hear the gun battle?" The corresponding song on the CD is "Billy the Kid: Gun Battle" by Aaron Copland. In the back of the book the paintings are presented again with biographical information about the artist and the musicians. What a lovely combination of the arts this is!
Online Extra: Parent Book Recommendations March 2007
Sandy Meagher is the Library Department Chairperson and School Librarian in the Wayne Highlands School District, Honesdale, PA.
March, 2007, Vol.37, No.6
