As most of you may know, I have four very geeky boys; they are extreme eggheads that love nothing more than playing in the basement or garage, doing experiments and don’t even get me started on the now infamous cheese and mold experiment that occurred here about a year ago. When it comes to anything artistic, they tend to stick with things that are angular and symmetrical – creative drawing is a rarity and usually only happens when closely correlated with a school project. With my two oldest boys still overseas for school and vacation my two youngest are having a ball monopolizing the computer and playing with my next door neighbors daughter Annabelle. One of the books that she drags off the shelf each and every day is “I Can Draw People” and this give my two youngest the chance to get silly and goofy with her. I have no idea where this book came from or how long it’s been sitting on the shelf and to be completely honest, I don’t even remember buying it. All that aside, this book has been getting a lot of action the past few months and it something that I highly recommend to any and all kids who love to draw.

”I Can Draw People”

One of the nicest things about this book is that you don’t have to sit with a child and read them instructions – each of the steps of the figure are shown in text form as well as in picture form. The various figures each have two pages, the first one showing how they are drawn and the second a full shot of the image with a possible background. Some of the figures that are featured in the book include: an angel, skier, cowboy, soccer player, scuba diver and an astronaut. There’s a total of fifteen different people to draw and color and the images are easy to draw with colored pencils, crayons or markers. You aren’t going to end up with perfectly drawn figures or people but that’s not the point of the book – it’s meant to inspire kids, to give them the basics to work with and allow them to add their own accents and backgrounds. One of Annabelle’s favorites to draw is the figure skater, after her first ten or so drawings she started to mix in the other backgrounds with the skater and eventually ended up with a fairy princess skater by adding the background of the angel and castle from the giant.

Since my boys are mostly into symmetrical and uniform drawing, pyramids being their favorite, it was pretty exciting to see my two youngest getting into this book with Annabelle. At first they laughed it off as a kiddie book and only sat down with her at the table to kill a half hour but now they too are getting a real kick out of the book. They all started out with smaller sheets of paper but have since started to use the large Crayola floor pad so they could have all the different characters from the book on one page. Since the floor pad is huge all three of them can work on different sections without getting in each others way. It’s really interesting to see the different ways they arrange the characters and how they make small stories to join them all together. To say that this book can inspire even the fuddy duddiest of kids is an understatement.

In addition to the various characters that are included in the book there’s also a small section of faces that can further enhance your childs drawings. These show a wide range of emotions as well as age ranges with my personal favorite being the blonde haired little girl with pig tails – one that Annabelle routinely points out as “me” when she’s flipping through the pages. One really nice extra of the book is additional instruction on how to draw the horse, this is found at the end of the book with the ‘horse and rider’. This is the largest part of the book and takes up three pages but is well worth it because there are so many different things you can do with the horse – have it with the rider, jumping over a fence, grazing … whatever your child wishes. This is also one of Annabelle’s favorite things to draw and mix with other characters although seeing an astronaut riding on a horse is a bit of a stretch.

The Bottom Line

As I mentioned, I have no idea where this book came from how when it arrived here so I have no clue how much it cost. The front part of the cover is pretty worn so I am guessing that it’s been here for at least a few years. The copyright is 1999 so there is a good chance that we picked it up at a book sale or a homeschool book swap. Even so, I checked to see if this is still in print and it is with most stores and sites selling it for about $4.00. I’m not all that familiar with Usborne books but I know they have a strong reputation for mixing entertainment and education. This book is a must have for any young child that loves to draw, the images are basic but allow a child to explore and add their own detail to it.


Stats

Title I Can Draw People
Publisher: Scholastic / Usborne Playtime
Pages 32
Age Range 3 - 10
ISBN: 0-439-31640-5
Price $4.00 [approximate price]

For additional information please contact:

Scholastic Inc.
555 Broadway
New York, New York 10012


As always, thanks for the read!

~^V^~ Freak ~^V^~

© 2004 Freak369


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Recommended: Yes