Group Review of If Picasso Painted a Snowman by Amy & Greg Newbold

Publisher: Tilbury House Publishers
Source: the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: October 3rd, 2017 
Buying Links: Amazon* | Book Depository* | Tilbury House | Barnes & Noble
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Blurb from goodreads:

If someone asked you to paint a snowman, you would probably start with three white circles stacked one upon another. Then you would add black dots for eyes, an orange triangle for a nose, and a black dotted smile. But if Picasso painted a snowman…

From that simple premise flows this delightful, whimsical, educational picture book that shows how the artist’s imagination can summon magic from a prosaic subject. Greg Newbold’s chameleon-like artistry shows us Roy Lichtenstein’s snow hero saving the day, Georgia O’Keefe’s snowman blooming in the desert, Claude Monet’s snowmen among haystacks, Grant Wood’s American Gothic snowman, Jackson Pollock’s snowman in ten thousand splats, Salvador Dali’s snowmen dripping like melty cheese, and snowmen as they might have been rendered by J. M. W. Turner, Gustav Klimt, Paul Klee, Marc Chagall, Georges Seurat, Pablita Velarde, Piet Mondrian, Sonia Delaunay, Jacob Lawrence, and Vincent van Gogh. Our guide for this tour is a lively hamster who—also chameleon-like—sports a Dali mustache on one spread, a Van Gogh ear bandage on the next.

“What would your snowman look like?” the book asks, and then offers a page with a picture frame for a child to fill in. Backmatter thumbnail biographies of the artists complete this highly original tour of the creative imagination that will delight adults as well as children.

Our Thoughts:

Bea:

"If Picasso Painted a Snowman" is an introduction to how artists from various styles of painting would create a snowman.  The paintings are true to each artist's style but have a snowman. There's a cute rodent that introduces each painting, and at the back of the book is a page for the child to draw or paint their own art and mini biographies of each artist. It's great for young children to simply page through and enjoy the illustrations, and play "find the rodent", while also serving as a good discussion starter about painters and paint styles for older children. It's not a how-to but a gentle introduction to the subject painters and art style and a delightful book. I recommended it to the art teacher at my former school.

Jax and Abby:

Beautiful book! I love books that give kids access to art. At 12, Abby has had several art teachers who have introduced her to a variety of artists and art styles. I shared the book with her, to see how many she'd recognize. She knew more than half listed in the book, and used the list to look up the rest and compare how the book's art matched the style it discussed. The authors have done an extraordinary job creating snowmen that represent such a range of talent.

I'm looking forward to sharing this book with my young nieces and nephews this winter. I think they'll enjoy seeing that there's no right way to express yourself artistically. There is a page at the back meant to be photocopied and used for people to make their own snowman. It'll be a fantastic activity for all of them.

Steph and Liam

I thought this would be a really cute book and a great way to introduce Liam to the world of art and it's different forms.

The pictures are spot on for each artist and really look as if they could have been painted by the actual artist. Liam's favorite picture was the "melty snowmen" in Salvador Dali's winter fantasy. For me it was a tossup between that one and Vincent Van Gogh's snowman.

I loved the little blurb in the back about each of the featured artists. Liam and I had a really good talk about how everyone's idea of art is different and that's ok.

I found this book to be a great introduction into the world of art for my 7 year old. The text is pretty simple but the pictures are (in Liam's words) pretty awesome.