Author(s): Sarah Pepperle

Art, Design, Architecture | Art | Aotearoa New Zealand | Board Books | Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu | Read our reviews!

A joyful alphabet of art from Aotearoa and around the world, curated especially for children! Before children can read, they engage with the language of pictures. The experience of art brings joy and delight to young children, connecting them with moments of beauty and wonder in the world around them. Curated for children aged 2–5 but suitable for anyone, this beautifully designed board book features full-page artworks by acclaimed artists from Aotearoa and around the world, accompanied by short, read-aloud texts. It features artworks in different media, from paintings to sculpture, photography to woodcuts, from the 1700s to the present. This stylish art book is the perfect way to introduce young children to art.

STELLA'S REVIEW:
Fresh out of the block is a new ABC art book. This beautifully designed board book comes from the excellent Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū. A is For Art is brilliant. Lively and joyful, it features art from Aotearoa and around the world — all examples from the gallery’s collection ranging from 1880 to the present day and across many art genres. Here you will both find familiar works as well as being introduced to some less well-known, and, for a child, it is all a wonderful new experience. Each work has been chosen with care to appeal to a younger audience without dumbing down the art. It’s lovingly curated and cleverly designed. The white space around the images allows them to sing on the page and text is highlighted with colour accents and a good use of changing scale to accentuate the letter and leading word/s. The text adds another layer of dialogue, complimenting the visual language in the images. It tells stories, suggests we can 'read' the artwork, and gives vocabulary in English and te reo. Turn to ‘D’ and here you will see Rita Angus’s ‘A Goddess of Mercy’ and the text “Dd is for deer friends.” And look again at this very attractive image, and there are the deer — one on each side of the goddess. On the facing page is ‘E’, a playful juxtaposition with the surprised or bemused elephant of Brent Harris’s ‘Troubled (Appalling Moment)’. For D the words tia/deer; for E arewhana/elephant are highlighted. K is kiwi and kete (made from kiwi feathers). The corresponding artists — illustrator Eileen Mayo and weaver Cath Brown. R introduces the rail (in the painting Hawkins by Rata Lovell-Smith) for the train (‘The Present Time, 60 Miles an Hour’ by Thomas Stevens) that will come with T; and Y and Z ask us to look, introducing the ideas of observation and questioning so intrinsic to appreciating art. In Z find the bee in the Willem van Royen ‘Still Life’ and in Y the sentence “The light on the lemon is soft and yellow” is pleasingly evocative for the film still by Nova Paul. These snippets are just some of the delights in A is for Art. It’s a success on so many levels. Excellent choice of artworks with a breadth of styles. There are objects, drawings, paintings, video stills, sculpture and print. There are serious considerations of art ideas in the simplest terms sitting easily alongside playful and humorous connections. It’s ABC that isn’t scared to be a little bit different while still fulfilling a function. And it will be a joy to share with young minds. If you like the gallery’s publications, we also have just received Ink on Paper (excellent), and have several of their books on our shelves.