Review
“This book is clever in its simple story and imaginative, 2-D illustrations, which are printed on pages like graph paper. Easy text appears in both standard form and yellow speech bubbles, giving it an easy-to-follow, graphic novel feel. Creative and loaded with humor, this story will have kids giggling in seconds and trying their hand at drawing a horse—or at least a gumdrop.” — Booklist, Starred Review
“Part Ed Emberley, with a dash of Pigeon, and entirely meta.... Draw this one from the shelf for a fun, metafictive read.” — Kirkus Reviews
“This simply rendered meta read-aloud by Harper (Bad Sister) raises a host of interesting questions about self-imposed limitations as well as possibilities for growth.” — Publishers Weekly
“With antecedents in Harold and the Purple Crayon and the “Elephant and Piggie” books, Harper wields her own mischievous humor…. An easy-to-read text with exclamatory speech bubbles and pictorial antics will tickle funny bones in this off-kilter circular story.” — School Library Journal
“Harper’s illustrations make so much of so little, using a very limited palette and simple shapes, inviting readers into an artist’s notebook. With a little imagination and some paper, ‘nothing’ can become quite something.” — Horn Book Magazine
Product Description
Award-winning author and illustrator Charise Mericle Harper delivers a fantastically funny picture book about doing the impossible: drawing a horse. A children’s metafiction book about creativity and imaginative play centered around an art lesson, Harper cleverly shows readers how drawings are a collection of recognizable shapes put together to create something new.
Elementary-aged readers will delight as the simple “nothing shape” becomes a cat, a squirrel, a beaver, a bunny, a dog, a turtle, and a bear. But what about a horse? The cat really wants a horse. But . . . the book cannot draw a horse. Can the quick-draw book appease the horse-obsessed cat with an impressive collection of horse-y alternatives (all created from the same “nothing shape”)? Or will the cat finally get a horse?
Harper’s quirky, contemporary voice and kid-friendly comic illustration style is on full display in this hilarious picture book with art education appeal. I Cannot Draw a Horse invites young readers into the narrative fun, as do such modern classics as Press Here by Hervé Tullet, Never Let a Unicorn Scribble by Diane Alber and The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt.
Hardcover picture book; 48 pages; 10 x 10 in.
From School Library Journal
K-Gr 2-"This is my shape," begins a never-seen narrator on a page showing a firmly outlined blue gumdrop. When the shape complains that it is a nothing, the narrator turns it into a cat. "I want a horse," demands the cat. But horses are hard to draw, so the narrator proceeds to cajole the cat into accepting things that are easier to draw: squirrel, beaver, bunny, dog. Of course, dogs chase cats, who then need hills and skateboards in order to escape. And thus, a zany exchange ensues with the unreasonable cat continuing to demand a fun, fast horse and the narrator diverting him with all manner of gumdrop-shaped alternatives. When the artist discovers that it is, indeed, possible to draw a horse, that horse has no interest in running. He wants a bicycle, which is simply too hard to draw. With antecedents in Harold and the Purple Crayon and the "Elephant and Piggie" books, Harper wields her own mischievous humor. Simple, childlike lines are filled with flat colors on an expansive graph paper ground. VERDICT An easy-to-read text with exclamatory speech bubbles and pictorial antics will tickle funny bones in this off-kilter circular story.-Jan Aldrich Solowα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
About the Author
Charise Mericle Harper is the award-winning author and illustrator of numerous children’s books and series, including the Just Grace series, th
