Each week we assemble a collection – a bouquet, if you will – of books you can read for yourself, or use to build into a display in your library. As always, the books we link to have info from Amazon.com. If you click a link and then buy anything at all from Amazon, we get a small percent of their profits from your sale. Thanks!! We really appreciate the assistance!
We are deep in the holiday season, and everyone is working to stay home, stay away from groups of people, and do our part to avoid getting sick and causing more problems for the already over-full medical system.
We can all do this! And some art might be the thing that helps to keep us occupied, entertained, and could be the start of a new hobby.
Check out some books that will help you enjoy some fictional art, or help you to try some new things.
- 365 Days of Art: A Creative Exercise for Every Day of the Year
365 Days of Art is an inspiring journal designed to help readers and budding artists nurture their creativity and explore their feelings through the medium of art. Featuring an activity for every day of the year, from simple tasks like drawing shapes and lines, to more mindful exercises like coloring-in, painting with primary colors, and drawing what you see. With beautiful, vibrant hand-lettering and watercolor illustrations, the book pairs inspiring quotes with supportive prompts and exercises to spark reflection through your drawing, writing, painting and more.
- Americanos, Apple Pies, and Art Thieves (A Cape Bay Cafe Mystery) (Volume 5), by Harper Lin
It’s almost Thanksgiving, and Fran is baking her family’s famous apple pies for the café. While pie fever spreads through Cape Bay, a world-famous artist holds a special art show in the town’s modest museum in honor of his late mother, who grew up there.
Louis Cliffton’s paintings are encrusted with valuable gems and gold. At the opening night, the centerpiece of the show is stolen. When Fran investigates the case, she receives threats, and someone follows her home and vandalizes her café.
What kind of thief would do this? A crazy outsider—or someone from her very own town?
- The Rescue Artist: A True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece, by Edward Dolnick
In the predawn hours of a gloomy February day in 1994, two thieves entered the National Gallery in Oslo and made off with one of the world’s most famous paintings, Edvard Munch’s Scream. It was a brazen crime committed while the whole world was watching the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer. Baffled and humiliated, the Norwegian police turned to the one man they believed could help: a half English, half American undercover cop named Charley Hill, the world’s greatest art detective.
The Rescue Artist is a rollicking narrative that carries readers deep inside the art underworld — and introduces them to a large and colorful cast of titled aristocrats, intrepid investigators, and thick-necked thugs. But most compelling of all is Charley Hill himself, a complicated mix of brilliance, foolhardiness, and charm whose hunt for a purloined treasure would either cap an illustrious career or be the fiasco that would haunt him forever.
- Art Making with MoMA: 20 Activities for Kids Inspired by Artists at The Museum of Modern Art, by Cari Frisch and Elizabeth Margulies
Art Making with MoMA, from the educators at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, presents 20 interactive activities that encourage kids (and adults!) to discover how modern and contemporary artists experiment with materials and techniques. Drawing on over 15 years of research and hands-on experience engaging families in multi-sensory programs at MoMA, this colorful activity book provides opportunities for creative exploration and art making at home, in a group or alone, while providing real examples of the tools, techniques, and ideas used by contemporary and modern artists whose works can be found in MoMA’s collection.
Each project is inspired by a particular artist, movement, or design concept, and features full-color reproductions of artwork from the likes of Diego Rivera, Vassily Kandinsky, Berenice Abbott, and Charles and Ray Eames. Step-by-step instructions, handy tips and open-ended questions encourage kids to think like artists and develop their own techniques and ideas for art making.
- Seen Art?, by Jon Scieszka
It all started when I told my friend Art I would meet him on the corner of Fifth and Fifty-Third.
I didn’t see him. So I asked a lady walking up the avenue, “Have you seen Art?”
“MoMA?” asked the lady.
“Uh . . . no, he’s just a friend.”
“Just down Fifty-Third Street here. In a beautiful new building. You can’t miss it.”
When this address turns out to be the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, confusion and hilarity ensue. As the narrator continues looking for Art inside MoMA, he is introduced to well-known pieces of art such as Van Gogh’s The Starry Night, Matisse’s The Red Studio, as well as works by Picasso, Klee, Lichtenstein and others.