The First Drawing

All I can say is… where was this book during the Summer Reading Program, it would have been perfect for the theme!  But nonetheless, this was a very interesting and accessible story about art history for young children.  My brother is an archeologist and in my mind he’s Indiana Jones and I know that it’s not truly like that, but I think he has a pretty exciting career.  He once told me he doesn’t read my blog because it’s not in his field of study, so I wrote a book review that I thought he would like a lot about the book Their Skeletons Speak.  And I think this is another blog entry that my brother may actually read!  Over the summer my brother just got a new tattoo of the cave art paintings from the Chauvet cave in France (because of his interest in archaeology, so this book is very pertinent for him.

The First Drawing is written and illustrated Mordicai Gerstein and would be a great choice to create a program about cave art for younger elementary school students and use brown butcher paper and oil pastels to create cave art of their very own.  This book also focuses on using your imagination, which is a tool children don’t utilize as much as they could because of all the technology – art is a great way for children to express themselves and their feelings and should be encouraged at home and school.  The little boy in this story can see pictures in the clouds, in the smoke of the fire his family shares, and on the walls of the caves when his family’s shadows move across the fire, but his family doesn’t understand him… how can he get them to see what he can see?

For more information about Mordicai Gerstein and his Caldecott Award winning book, among others, check out his website!

Title: The First Drawing
Author/Illustrator: Mordicai Gerstein
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Publication Date: 2013