RILEY AND ROSE IN THE PICTURE

It’s raining cats and dogs. Well, not exactly, but it is raining hard, keeping Riley the dog and Rose the cat indoors, so they decide to draw pictures—and no fighting. Riley wants to draw dots, lines and shapes; Rose wants to draw trees, bugs and carrot cake. His circles become her bugs with legs and spots; she claims his zigzag lines are tents not triangles. When a rectangle becomes a pretend boat in a storm, the two animals play out a pretend rescue—together, and end up sharing cake. A very clever take on art forms and the art of give-and-take, literally illustrating (with crayon markings) how different folks see things differently. The concept of point-of-view and “perspective” is characterized with humorous gouache artwork as the disagreeing artist friends recognize the power of individual expression. Imaginative, inventive and instructional, rolled into a delightful story. Follow up with Mark Gonyea’s A Book About Design (p. 588) to inspire budding artists. (Picture book. 5-8)