Look! Look! Look! At Sculpture

K-Gr 2—Three young mice visit a museum displaying Barbara Hepworth's Four Rectangles with Four Oblique Circles, 1966. With hands clasped behind them, they do a walk around the sculpture, observing it closely. They talk about what it is, what it might be, and how it makes them feel. They draw three-dimensional representations on sketchpads, and with colored clay they make rectangles with texture, arranging them into groupings that can be viewed in different ways. As they are making clay circles, approaching footsteps send them scurrying out of the museum. Photographs of actual artwork displayed on crisp white backgrounds are labeled and identified by type of sculpture, contrasting with the characters done simply in collage. Age-appropriate language allows young readers to share the mice's adventure into the world of art. Instructions in the end pages encourage children to create paper sculptures of their own. With its great child appeal and wealth of information, this is a solid choice for most collections.—Mary Jean Smith, formerly at Southside Elementary School, Lebanon, TN