LITERATUREK12

Author Archive

Beginner books that I have written are aimed at Pre-K through 2nd grade (more or less).  I have tried to make them fun and educational.  The first thing I included was a rhyming text.  This automatically makes the text more fun to listen to for the child and more fun for the parent to read.  The text is set up in quartets with an “abab” rhyme scheme.  The first three lines of the quartet introduce three new art history ideas and the fourth line introduces a nonsensical rhyme illustrated by a cartoon animal.  This way I can introduce words that may not be  familiar to young children and yet they will be interesting because they are fun to say when rhymed with something silly.  For example, the first quartet in the Missions book is:

Mission bell.

Mission door.

Mission pediment.

Mission snore.

Children love nonsense (especially if it is funny) and it will hopefully keep them interested.

To further clarify what is being referenced in the photos (perhaps not all parents know what a pediment is) a cartoon animal is pointing to the exact object and saying it.

The books are meant to be read quickly and not belabored and to simply introduce terms and symbols and to familiarize children with great art and architecture.

To entice the children to study the photographs further, at the end of each book i invite them to go back through the book and look for a hidden item on each page.  Children love the “hide-and-seek” aspect and will “study” each work of art without even realizing it.

That is all i intended.  A quick and fun read that can be repeated endlessly (as children love to do at that age) without getting too old.  And the children will acquire new art terms and become very familiar with 24 great art images per book.

-Kristin