Goose the Artist by award winning author Kimberly Andrews, is the fourth in her series of Picture Books about Puffin and her friends.
Goose is determined to create the perfect painting for the village art competition and to be the winner. Her friends obligingly act as her models.
For each day of the week Goose chooses a different theme. On her day cow, in her freshly polished hooves, poses precariously on a tiny four-legged stool. Goose paints her Van Gogh style with thick impasto strokes, standing in a meadow below swirling clouds. For Puffin an ingenious contraption has been invented to create an arctic background. And on the theme of Pigs can Fly, pig, with a pair of wings attached to his back, is hung up high in a harness and looks rather worried. But an inflatable swimming pool has been placed underneath in case he should fall.
Each day Goose’s animal friends drop by to watch the artist at work. They are very impressed with her portraits and shower her with compliments:
Crikey! It’s beautiful ! Surely that is a winner! Whoa! Radical!
But nothing satisfies Goose. She is a perfectionist and feels not one of her portraits will be good enough to win the competition.
By the end of the week, she has worked herself into such a frazzle to meet the deadline that she is utterly exhausted. Then disaster strikes! Goose is devastated! But eventually she realizes that there are more important things in life than winning the Art competition and the story ends on a very celebratory note.
Goose the Artist is a picture book that children can grow into. Little ones, three years and up, will enjoy listening to how the story unfolds, love pouring over the detailed illustrations on each double page spread and have fun going on a spider hunt. There are eighteen in all, one hiding on each page.
Creative youngsters who want to try their hand at different techniques and media such as charcoal, pastels and paints will find Goose’s rhyming, step by step descriptions of how she created each artwork a great help as they create their own masterpieces.
And for older children there is so much more to learn. There are many visual references to artistic movements and styles throughout this book.
As both a grandma and an art teacher I think Goose the Artist is a gem of a book. Kimberly Andrews has such a gift for teaching children about art in a delightfully playful and humorous way!
Reviewer: Lyn Potter
Puffin