School Library Journal Starred Review (Sat Apr 01 00:00:00 CST 2006)

PreS-Gr 3 Patrick McDonnell, the cartoonist behind the comic strip "Mutts," gives a boisterous homage to art in this animated version of his picture book (Little Brown, 2006). Art is a young boy who likes art. He splashes colors across pages, and fills blank whiteness with zigzags, swirls, and scribbles. Encouraged by his mother, he ventures from abstract art to more realistic realms where his imagination still soars. The simple rhyming text is delightful and the animation captures the spirit of the book in its vibrant playfulness. The real stand-out is Bobby McFerrin who narrates, scats, and sings his way through the book with delightful percussion accompaniment. His voice dances over the words, bounces through pages, and carries listeners along. Bonus features include a subtitle option and a 2008 interview with the author providing additional background on both the book and its creator. The CD version contains the DVD's sound track. Art and music teachers will find this a delight, and it would be the perfect way to start classroom art activities. Teresa Bateman, Brigadoon Elementary School, Federal Way, WA

ALA Booklist (Sat Apr 01 00:00:00 CST 2006)

PreS-K. McDonnell, creator of the Mutts comic strip, offers this slim story that owes its concept to Crockett Johnson's classic Harold and the Purple Crayon (1955). McDonnell begins with wordplay: This is Art, read the words above an image of a young boy. And this is art, read the words on the following page, located above a rainbow of watercolor swirls. On the following spreads, McDonnell's rhyming text follows Art, the boy, as he wields his crayons, pencils, and brushes with gleeful abandon, creating joyful swirls, zigzags, and doodles that eventually form a neighborhood scene, which he enters in his dreams when he falls asleep. The story is slender, and the rhymes occasionally seem cloying: Art stares at the paper and uses his noodle to conjure up a perfect doodle. Peter Reynolds' The Dot (2003) offers more substantive stories about kids creating art. Still, the scenes of Art at work exude a contagious, freewheeling energy that may inspire children to grab their own crayons and let their imaginations loose on paper.

Horn Book (Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2007)

Cork the muskrat and Fuzz the possum play many games, but Cork gets frustrated when Fuzz keeps winning. He suggests a swim race without realizing Fuzz can't swim. When Fuzz momentarily disappears, Cork fears the worst, and soon realizes that winning isn't so important as long as he has his buddy. Sharp, playful illustrations display the friends' emotions.

Kirkus Reviews (Sat Apr 01 00:00:00 CST 2006)

Art's art moves and explodes. There are splatters, squiggles and curls, zigs, zags and doodles and loads of color. After all that energetic creativity, Art "flops in a heap / and among his creations / he falls fast asleep." When he awakens, his drawings are on the refrigerator, placed there by his mother because she loves Art. McDonnell's minimalist rhyming text flies across the pages in large bold block letters. Even the youngest reader can discern the basic pun, and more sophisticated readers will enjoy finding deeper variations. It is both a slight tale of a creative child and a glimpse into the nature of art. The primary color illustrations are exuberant and joyful and seamlessly match the text. Art runs from page to page with paintbrush or colored pencil, drawing as he goes, paying direct homage to Harold and the Purple Crayon. Harold now has a perfect companion in Art. Sheer delight. (Picture book. All ages)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Art serves as a boy's name and favorite pastime in this cheerful sequence, which echoes Crockett Johnson's <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Harold and the Purple Crayon. McDonnell (<EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">The Gift of Nothing) lures readers along with antic visuals and a catchy rhyming text about "Art and his art/ Can you tell them apart?" The boy stands about an inch-and-a-half tall in the squarish pages, and in one Jackson Pollock–esque spread, he is indeed covered in his medium. Wearing his blue baseball hat backward and attired in Dennis the Menace fashion, he reaches with a brush to fill the vast white space all around him with red, yellow and blue daubs and spatters, zigzags and spirals, drips and dots. Then he grabs a thick black pencil and doodles a flat house, a basic tree and a cartoon dog. All this activity wears him out, and when he wakes from a nap, he sees his creations tacked to the fridge: "Held there by magnets/ (stars and a heart)/ Put there by mother/ 'Cause mother loves Art." The hero, drawn neatly in a clean black line, with his compact body, shock of hair and giant smile, recalls everybody from Richard Outcault's Yellow Kid to Bill Watterson's Calvin. McDonnell takes a familiar topic—an imaginative boy who loves to draw—and injects this volume with an exuberant comic-strip sensibility. Ages 3-6. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(Apr.)