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“Leila-sama! We got another e-mail question from my super-neat Jessie’s Letters page!”

“It is a question with profound meaning?”

“Uh uh.”

“It is a question that seeks the deepest mysteries of the universe?”

“Nope.”

“It is a question that will challenge our understanding of our existence?”

“It’s a question about being a drummer in marching band.”

“Oh, that’s easy.”

“Sometimes Leila frightens me.”

“Heheee… okay. The question says ‘In your story you said the drummers play a cadence. What’s a cadence?’”

“Cake question.”

“Cadence is when the drum section plays a rythym so the rest of the formation can keep time with their steps. We have four cadences in the Lions Band. The first two are full cadences.”

“That’s the one you start!”

“Yeah. Full Cadence Green starts with a roto-tom solo.”

“The other one is our ‘good morning’ cadence.”

“Full Cadence Gold starts with a full section downbeat and cymbal crash.”

“Good morning cadence?”

“We like to play Full Cadence Gold on Collins Circle over behind the school so if anyone in the neighborhood across the street didn’t hear their alarm clock we help them wake up.”

“Yay! Ohayo minna! It’s a bright sunshiney day!”

“Well, except for that one guy who stood in his driveway yelling at us that one day last year.”

“I think he thought we were trying to annoy everyone. Until we marched past his house in parade formation and played ‘National Emblem’ during after-school practice. His wife baked cookies for all of us the next day and brought them to the band room. She said he was so proud to have a parade in front of his house he almost cried. What a nice old couple too.”

“That’s cool. What are the other two cadences?”

“We have one called a ‘Silent Cadence’ if we’re marching up to a performance area at parades. There’s a couple hundred yards where bands aren’t allowed to make a lot of noise because it disrupts the bands in the performance area, so we play that cadence on the rims of our drums.”

“That’s the tick-tock cadence. All drum rims, traps and glockenspiels.”

“That’s the one that sounds like a carnival! I like the tick-tock cadence best.”

“The fourth one is a simple corps cadence. One snare plays the measure downbeats. We use that for starting formations on the field.”

“Now which one do we play in the tunnel at Brown Stadium?”

“Full Cadence Gold, baby.”

“Yeah!”

“Maximum volume. Maximum power.”

“Yay! Arigato minna-san! If you got a question or a comment or just wanna say ‘hi!’ you can send me e-mail on my Jessie’s Letters page and we might even get to answer your question right here on our site! Ja ne!”

It's Nonfiction Monday! Visit the roundup at Picture Book of the Day!

Reading level: Ages 4-8
Library Binding: 32 pages
Publisher: Millbrook Press

When I was young, I had little exposure or interest in art. As an adult, I'm surrounded by museums that feature art of various types, and when I visit these museums, I truly appreciate the art but wish I knew more about the history, the technique, and the artists themselves. I should have taken an art history course in college and maybe I'll still do it one of these days. If you have a child who loves art or if you'd like to expose your child to more art, Bob Raczka's Art Adventures series is a great way to introduce art without overwhelming him/her. Through paintings, portraits, photgraphs, sculpture, and easy-to-read text, Bob Raczka introduces some of the world's most famous works of art and encourages young readers to develop an appreciation for it.

A new book in the series, The Art of Freedom: How Artists See America, defines America through the eyes of famous artists. The book features 18 statements answering the question, "What is America?" Each statement is accompanied by a famous work of art that visually represents the statement. Underneath each work of art is the name of the artist, the name of the piece, and the location of where the piece is displayed. For example, beside the statement, "America is an idea," is John Trumbell's painting The Declaration of Independence, 4 July 1776.
Ansel Adams' Desert Road accompanies the statement, "America is the open road," and Georgia O'Keefe's Brooklyn Bridge is opposite the page that says, "America is man-made marvels."

The background of each page alternates between red and blue with faded stars at the top. The art and colors, combined with the inspiring statements, give the book a very patriotic feel. I can even imagine this book being a great gift choice to US military members as a way to honor their service.

Raczka did an exceptional job of choosing art to compliment the text and makes these famous works of art accessible to young readers without intimidating or overwhelming them, and I am eager to read the other books in the series.

What I like about art is how it comes into your consciousness sideways while you’re thinking about something else. Raczka’s recent alphabet picture book, 3-D ABC: A Sculptural Alphabet, (search at Lerner Publishing) is quirky in exactly this way. His minimal text never refers directly to the letters the images supposedly illustrate. The letters K and L, for example, are represented in a 2-page spread of Brancusi’s “The Kiss” and Robert Indiana’s “Love.” The text reads simply “Sometimes, two completely different sculptures… can say exactly the same thing.” The cover art, Rauschenberg’s Spoonbridge and Cherry at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, is a captivating image for any kid. (”I want to go there,” I overheard a preschooler at the library say to his mom, pointing to the cover photo.)

3-D ABC introduces images of significant 20th century sculpture by artists from Giocometti and Picasso to Jeff Koons, installed from Munich to New York to Tokyo (links are to images of works in the book). Raczka gives kids a solid sense of the range of sculptural materials, scale and subject matter. With delightful juxtaposition of images and respectfully fine reproduction quality, 3-D ABC introduces young readers to shapes that are iconic across cultures, ideas that make the world very small in a very good way.

Who am I and how do I look to others? Bob Raczka’s Here’s Looking at Me: How Artists See Themselves, an American Library Association Notable Book for middle readers, stimulates children to explore these two fascinating and important human questions. Fourteen artists’ self portraits, from Velasquez to Harlem painter Jacob Lawrence, introduce children to the many ways that visual artists portray themselves.

Parents and teachers who want kids to explore art on its own terms will find this primer on self-portraits much to their liking. In addition, check out Just Like Me, a multicultural collection of artist self portraits–along with artists’ statements and their childhood photographs–and this art workshop, based on Just Like Me. For some great online ideas about kids’ self-portraits, click here.

Finally, following up on my series of posts on spiritual literacy, here’s Concord Magazine’s gallery of spiritual self portraits by children.

Buddhists add a sixth sense to the five we ordinarily think of, and it’s thinking itself; to the Buddhist, thoughts impinge on the mind just the way sights, for example, impress the eye. It’s the vibrant interplay of sense organ, sense object, and consciousness that make up our experience of self.

The concept of Bob Raczka’s More Than Meets the Eye, part of his Adventures in Art picture book series, treats only the five conventional senses, but he engages the mind as a sixth sense in the process. “Have you ever tasted a painting?” he asks, illustrating with Vermeer’s milk jug, Cassatt’s cup of tea, and of course Thiebaud’s frosted cakes. Hockney’s splashing diver, Jamie Wyeth’s stinky pig and Rivera’s tortillas, among others, point out sound, smell, and touch respectively. Works by Vasarely and Chuck Close demonstrate the art of really looking at pictures.

We don’t get Raczka’s charming rhymes in this book, but there is plenty of art food for thought for children and parents alike. Raczka understands that art is an experience, and he serves it up deliciously. In crossing senses, he also crosses cultures. The images and the senses he evokes and inspires are universal.

Patricia Stohr-Hunt’s blog, The Miss Rumphius Effect (where she’s known as Tricia) has a wonderful list of sense-evoking books for kids.

3-D ABC: a sculptural alphabet by Bob Raczka. Millbrook Press, 2007

Bob Raczka writes terrific books about art for children. His excellent Here's Looking at Me: How Artists See Themselves should be in every art teacher's collection. In 3-D he explores sculpture. Using an ABC book format, he presents a wide range of concepts and media.

His subjects are well chosen to engage young imaginations. Each work is presented with full attribution which includes the title, the artist, the date and the location of the piece. A page at the back gives full credit for the photography in the book too. The importance of properly citing resources and giving credit to the work of others should be and must be continually emphasized to students.

Everything works in this book from the clear typography to the clean layout. The art is beautifully photographed and tagged with a letter of the alphabet.

Concert for Anarchy by Rebecca Horn at the Tate Gallery in London is an inverted grand piano, hanging in midair with the keys spilling downward. It illustrates "U is for Upside Down."

A sculpture can make you look at things differently,

A Sculpture can make you Smile

Art is an especially direct path to multicultural consciousness: the stretch an artist challenges us with is very like the stretch of seeing another culture afresh. Yet while there are wonderful art project books and books that present ideas about art, surprisingly few present actual works of art in a way that children can relate to directly. Bob Raczka’s Adventures in Art series, published by Lerner Publishing’s Millbrook Press imprint, does a great job of this, presenting real works of art with simple, often rhyming text. “Art is draped, art is chiseled, art is pasted, art is drizzled,” he explains in his 2002 Art Is. It features 27 works of art spanning the spectrum of time and genre from Bridget Riley and Christo to the Lascaux cave paintings and a mask from the Cameroon and concludes, “Art is an island surrounded by pink. Art is how artists get you to think.” Brief notes on each artist follow.

Raczka goes well beyond depicting famous works of art in an accessible context; his imagination and respect for kids make his series a work of art itself. Tune in again soon for more on good art books for kids, including more Bob Raczka books.