Board Books

AGE GUIDES: these are approximate recommendations:

• Board books, 0-3 years old

REVIEWERS: Marie Soriano

* denotes San Diego writer and/or illustrator
** Age levels, when provided by the publishers, are included in the bibliographical information. Otherwise, category placements are our best approximations.

• Rubin, Susan Goldman. Matisse: Dance for Joy. San Francisco: Chronicle, 2008. ISBN 978-0-8118-6288-2. $6.99 U.S. Ages 2 and up. www.chroniclekids.com
  

Rubin, Susan Goldman. Matisse: Dance for Joy. San Francisco: Chronicle, 2008. ISBN 978-0-8118-6288-2. $6.99 U.S. Ages 2 and up. www.chroniclekids.com

Rubin has used the bright, beautiful colorful collages of artist Henri Matisse to complement her text about dance and movement. Parents might want to read this board book to their young children just to enjoy the joyful prose and art, or teachers might want to read the book as part of a lesson plan or exercise plan to inspire their students to dance like little wild women and men.

Other board books published by Chronicle and featuring contemporary art include Andy Warhol’s Colors and Counting with Wayne Thiebaud. Susan Goldman Rubin also writes biographies of artists for middle grade and young adult readers. I know of two: one about Wayne Thiebaud, which I reviewed and highly recommend, and one about Roy Lichtenstein.

Marie Soriano