Mike Venezia

Mike Venezia offers a compassionate ride through the life of Vincent Van Gogh.

While a bit silly at times, his approach does not detract from beauty
as he progresses through the power of the chosen paintings.

Young readers may be deeply inspired to get help when they feel different or lonely.

This is a lovely gem of a book given to me by a wonderful LT friend. The author has a unique style of writing text about Van Gogh's works while drawing accompanying laugh-out-loud cartoons.

This is a wonderful book for someone who knows little about Van Gogh and his exquisite works. I will be sure to look folr more books by this author. While the intended market is for young people, it is a lovely presentation and well-worth to time spent by all ages.

I really enjoyed learning about the life of the man behind the famous painting. Even though some people made fun of Dali throughout his life, he always thought it was important to be himself and did not really care what other people thought which I thought was a very good message to send to the children reading the book. The illustrations throughout the book were very interesting and varied between real paintings that Dali or other artists, like Picasso, made and also some fun illustrations show more explaining what was happening in the text. For example, when the text says that he acted different than the other students, the illustrations was of him doing something different like being afraid of grasshopper to really explain the scene which I really liked. This book was also written really well and presented the information to the kids in a fun way. It was not completely serious the whole book which kept your interest and also gave fun facts not just boring facts about his life. Next to many of the text there were pictures or illustrations of what they were taking about making the information more concrete. The plot of the story was not only about the importance of being different but it also put a great focus on looking at things in your world in many different ways, just like Dali did with his paintings. One painting could be seen in many different ways depending on the person looking at it. I thought this was a great biography to read to children. show less

I had mixed feelings about this book after reading it. I liked how much information the books gives on Georgia O’Keeffe. For example, the book explains that Georgia was known for her bright paintings of natural items. The book also explains some personal aspects of Georgia's life, like her marriage to Alfred Stieglitz. Another thing I liked about the book was the organization. The books starts with Georgia's childhood, then moves onto her college years, followed by her time as a show more professional artist and finally her death. The organization makes for an easy read. The only thing that I do not like about this book is the lack of excitement. I had a hard time paying attention while reading so I can only imagine how an elementary student would feel while reading this book. Overall the main purpose of this book is to inform and it did a great job at that. However, this book is not engaging. show less