Aug. 8, 2008 - Have you read “Parsley Rabbit’s Book about Books?”
Where has my blogging week gone! I mentioned that I would blog about the authors/illustrators I took Nomi in to see last Saturday.
We are very fortunate to have a library that is very proactive in promoting books, authors, illustrators and artists in general. We have a steady stream of visiting authors throughout the year and though they come mainly in connection with the school, the library generally extends the invitation to the homeschoolers.
I guess the highlight for us has been that Joshua was invited to spend a 1 hour with Mark Greenwood one-on-one. Mark was so very encouraging to Joshua with his writing, and even remembered Josh a couple of years later. As a parent you certainly appreciate adults who give themselves to your children like this.
 Anyway last weekend the library was promoting “Books Alive – 50 Books you can’t put down!”. The weekend’s activities were focused around the children’s picture book Parsley Rabbit’s Book about Books. Both author, Frances Watts and illustrator, David Legge were there to talk to the children.
Naomi particularly enjoyed speaking to David Legge and watching him draw from scratch. He talked about starting off drawing the block shapes that represented the object, sketching with a pencil, lightly till you got the right shape, not using an eraser. He also demonstrated how he got figures looking real – he did the action himself and observed where his body parts were and then drew it accordingly. All of these lessons were very timely for Nomi, our artist, to listen to.
The other very exciting aspect was that he introduced Nomi to the computer for art – he actually used computer software and a drawing tablet/stylus for the art in Parsley Rabbit….
This book is absolutely wonderful. It shows the children all the different aspects of a book – from end papers to publishing details, it talks about how books can look different and be read in different places. It is really about enjoying a book. It was a timely story actually as we are in the middle of a unit, make your own books, for a competition sponsored by the library.
I have read it to the children this week, around the dinner table. They all were enthralled and was sorry Daddy missed out!
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