My girls have a passion for drawing so I purchased three very basic I Can Draw books for them last year. My youngest was 4-years-old at the time. She is easily discouraged and doesn't like to tackle hard things so I felt confident that this book would be appropriate for her age.

This book is set up like a typical drawing book except all of the steps are in color. For instance, the author indicates to draw a hat which can be seen in yellow crayon. He adds a shirt in red and pants in blue. I think this is great for my daughter because she doesn't have the patience to go back over pencil marks to color things in.

This is a small book and is bound together nicely so that the pages stay open. There are 14 unique people to draw, sometimes with an appropriate background that the child can also draw like a cactus with the cowboy. (workman, angel, giant, pirate, queen, ballerina, soccer player, scuba diver, astronaut, parachutist, skier, ice skater, cowboy, horse and rider.) Each drawing takes two pages. The directions are broken down into numbered steps with just basic words such as , “Add some sleeves”. The reader will be able to follow directions without reading. It never takes more than a few steps to complete the person. All of the examples are ultimately in crayon so looks just like what the child will produce. These are really easy things so I think all kids will be able to do them well.

Many of the drawings use a felt tip for drawing the head and body. The drawings are later filled in with a crayon of matching color. A box of 8 crayons would be sufficient but a box of 24-count may be better because many of the examples have pink, purple and different shades of blues and greens.

I can not draw people at all so I thought I would try some of the instructions. Drawing in marker is a lot more fun than drawing in pencil. The book definitely helps. I don't think I could have drawn the picture just by looking at the picture. I could do it just fine with the steps broken down for me.

My daughter is now in kindergarten and one of the things she was getting remarks on was not staying inside the lines. This is good practice for her to draw something and stay within her lines. I think it's very different than a coloring book because coloring books have huge areas to color. The child will have the opportunity to color in a smaller area and use their imagination to make their own designs on the drawings.

My girls like to draw people and then cut them out. Then they cut out outfits to put on over the people. It's really cute. They would not have been able to do that before they got the book. I think the girls have taken the fundamentals in this book and applied them to their own drawings as well.

Overall
One thing that I love about the book is all of the examples are done in marker and crayon. I think most kids are comfortable using crayons and may be able to relate to the drawing book better. Perhaps if they sense that it's for their age group they won't get discouraged.

My youngest daughter uses this book once in awhile. Her favorite people to draw is the astronaut and the parachutist. I think both boys and girls ages 4-6 will enjoy this $5 book.

Recommended: Yes