Shelf Awareness
Giving the right book to
a child at the right time can convert him or her into a lifelong reader. We put
together a list of what we believe could well be those books. For families with
a preschooler, Maisy is a household name. This year, Create with Maisy: A Maisy
Arts-and-Crafts Book by Lucy Cousins (reviewed below) presents
safe, age-appropriate project ideas just right for youngest children to make
and give to others.
We sat down with Lucy Cousins when she visited the U.S.
recently from her home in Britain. How does she hit her target time after time,
yet keep her Maisy books so fresh? For one thing, she explained, she works out
the colors and where things will be on the page ahead of time, so that when she
draws, it looks and feels spontaneous. She believes this approach apes the
attitude of her young audience: "The way children think and do things are
spontaneous," Cousins said. She uses pure Pantone colors (straight out of
the tube) for her artwork: "The simplicity of those colors and their
combinations work," she explained. "It's not about subtlety--it's
about immediacy." Cousins also worked on the storyboards and scripts for
the Maisy TV series and noted that they did all 104 episodes "in one
shot." It takes 7,000-8,000 drawings to make just five minutes of
animation.
Cousins studied graphic
design in college, and her background has served her well. In addition to
writing and illustrating her books, she also designs the type and the pages.
"I love being able to do a whole book. It's really satisfying," said
the author-artist. For Create
with Maisy, Cousins tried to make the crafts look as if Maisy had
done them. "I want people to feel like, 'I could do that!' " --Jennifer M.
Brown, children's editor, Shelf
Awareness
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Who better to guide
children on a creative adventure than Maisy, early childhood's most colorful
mouse?
Cousins pulls off
something that is very difficult--presenting enticing projects in a way that
appeals both to pre-reading browsers (bright colors, great photography, bold
graphics) and to the adults that have to pull the project together (clear
directions, simple tools, not too messy, stuff we have at home). After an
opening note to parents, the book invites young readers right in. "Maisy
loves making things... You can make things too." With a range of
traditional art activities, nature crafts, construction, pretend play and a
mix of projects sure to appeal to both girls and boys, this book will
supplant many fancier books for its sheer flexibility and dependable content.
From the first
("Beady Butterfly") to the last ("Colorful Cookies"),
every one of this book's 17 projects pops with age-appropriate possibility.
--Kristen McLean, former head of the Association of Booksellers for Children,
founder & CEO of Bookigee
Discover: A first book of
crafts tailor-made for preschoolers, with clear instructions and photos,
using stuff you already have.
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