Julie Merberg's book is about Van Gough's paintings. This book explains what the paintings mean in terms children could understand. It is a good book to introduce children to Van Gough's art and introduce new challenging words. ( )

This book is a great way to introduce little ones to Van Gogh's art, as well as to the process of planting and harvesting. The rhyming text talks about planting and plants, while the illustrations are all reprints of actual Van Gogh paintings. (The titles of the pieces are all listed at the end of the book.) The board book format holds up well to little hands. ( )

I have a few of the books in the series.

On the plus side, I really like the concept - picture books introducing famous artists to young children. What could be cooler than that?

Unfortunately, I don't like the writing that much. Prose would be perfectly suited for these pictures, but instead the author keeps trying to write it in rhyme, and it falls very flat. The whole thing seems trite, and a lot of the rhymes and meter end up sounding forced.

I'd still be buying the books, despite this, because I like the idea so much, except we've run into a new snag - they're not very well put together. By which I mean that all of the books we have in this series started to fall apart within a year, a year and a half of their purchase. They're board books, and the nieces are actually too old to "need" board books - they're not rough on the books at all. This should not be happening. The shoddy construction *will* keep me from buying more books, where awkward text wouldn't.

If these books ever get printed in paperback, or maybe as a hardcover compilation, I'll probably buy them. But I cannot recommend that anybody buy the board books. ( )