Look at Me!: The Art of the Portrait for Children

Gr 5–7—A history of portraiture in fine art. Many of the portraits discussed are quite well known, such as Botticelli's Venus, da Vinci's Mona Lisa, and Van Gogh's self-portrait, while others are less familiar. Writing in informal second person, Strand invites readers to participate in a dialogue about the works' artistic qualities such as facial expression, profile, concepts of beauty, caricature, and abstraction. The discussion is interesting and thought-provoking but Strand is sometimes a little gushy ("Beauty is magical and radiates out into the world"). The book is nicely formatted with heavy weight, semigloss paper and good-quality color printing. The text is printed in small font, but words and phrases that are the main idea of each paragraph appear in a larger, color font. The book is illustrated with large color reproductions of the art discussed in the text as well as decorative cartoon illustrations and graphical art designs that appear as color fades around and behind the text. There are a number of interactive projects that might cause problems for libraries. There is a space for readers to draw a self-portrait, a paper-doll pattern to color and cut out, and others. Bob Raczka's Here's Looking at Me (Milbrook, 2006) is also an engaging discussion of portraiture, and it is a good substitute.—Donna Cardon, Provo City Library, UT