Fun and Easy Drawing at Sea

K-Gr 4—Curto offers basic techniques to create a variety of characters. Beginning with simple geometric shapes, she encourages readers to round them off, adding details and finishing touches before coloring them. The author often incorporates slight changes to these cartoon drawings, resulting in a number of variations for the given subjects. Each finished creation is accompanied by general facts about the object or character. While the techniques seem simplistic in nature, they can be deceivingly complex as Curto incorporates some fairly complicated skills at the end of each book-topics such as perspective, drawing three dimensionally, shadows, and capturing movement. The format and focus of each title is essentially the same; it is the presentation of these new skills that makes these titles more than meets the eye. The purchase of the entire set is recommended, since each title works well in tandem to present drawing in an achievable and fulfilling manner; the books are certain to increase confidence and skill-building in young artists.—Rebecca Gueorguiev, New York Public Library