YOU CAN MOVE MOUNTAINS

Biography meets an affirming painting tutorial in this offering centered on the iconic host of PBS’s The Joy of Painting.

“You start with a blank canvas. / Any size or shape will do. / Because the canvas is your world…” Second-person narration guides readers through basic instructions for painting on canvas. Corresponding images tell the story of Bob Ross (1942-1995), the small-screen painting instructor famous for his philosophy that there are no mistakes, only “happy accidents.” Sometimes Ho’s text draws a connection to Ross’s life as an artist: The words “You fill a palette with globs of paint” appear above an illustration of young Ross finger-painting in his high chair. At other times the text is more open-ended: “The canvas beckons. / A limitless sky, and a waiting horizon” finds Ross as a young man in front of an armed forces recruiting center. Young readers whose PBS-viewing habits are limited to children’s fare will likely have no idea who Bob Ross was—and Ho keeps things vague until a more concrete author’s note—but they should nevertheless enjoy the book’s calming, Ross-like narration and Miyares’ ink-and-gouache art: It looks woodblocky at times and painterly at others and suggests a talent unlikely to have been cultivated while watching an instructional TV show, no matter how good.

A soothing, creativity-fostering account.