Author: Kertu Sillaste
Illustrator: Kertu Sillaste
Publisher: Graffeg
Genre: Children’s picture book
Book format: Paperback
Sweet Strawberries:
Description: Art can be a game, a puzzle, or sometimes a great big surprise!
Join John as he says ‘I am an artist’ and find out what that means:
- What is art?
- What is an artist?
- Where do all the good ideas come from?
This was definitely a different picture book than some I’ve read before. Being an artist myself I was interested in seeing how this picture book aimed at children would portray what an artist is. John begins by introducing himself before showing us all the different ways in which you can do art. Artists have lots of ideas, have lots of different ways of expressing themselves and find it hard to show their artwork ot others. I love how this book shows all the different ways in which art can be done and along with the text there are some brilliant examples of art, especially some more abstract pieces.
The book covers issues such as the difficulty of showing art to others, not always feeling like a piece of art is good enough and even showing the days when creativity just isn’t happening. I like the fact these not so great moments are shown as it’s easy, even as a child, to get frustrated if something you’re doing just doesn’t work out right. At least the perfectionist artist in me as a child felt like that! I like the positive message this book gives at the end and how the book on the whole makes all art feel like something positive to do and try, and the illustrations do add to this a lot.
The pictures throughout the story are a mix of drawings/paintings like john the artist and some of his art, and photographs of certain items laid into the picture making pieces of artwork feel like they come to life in an abstract way. I really love how creative these images are. They really help you to feel the creativity in the artwork that John does and I just found some of the images fascinating to look at as you take a proper look to see exactly what a certain statue or painting is really made of.
This picture book is a translated book and I love how interesting and different it is. It has a good and positive message about art and being an artist and might even inspire children to start doing some art of their own, especially some art styles they might not have tried before. The illustrations throughout the book look interesting and I can’t help but enjoy the weird mix of art and photography used in the images. There’s something that feels so unique and different about this book, and although it lacks a bit of a story, and I would have preferred a little more colour to some of the images, I just can’t help but love this book and keep looking back at it again and again!
What do you think of this book? Did you enjoy doing art as a child? What about now? Let me know what you think in the coments below 🙂
The Strawberry Post 