Look! Look! Look!

Author, illustrator, and narrator Nancy Elizabeth Wallace's Look! Look! Look! features a trio of mice (Kiki, Alexander, and Kat) living in the human Bigley family's home. The nosy little rodents “borrow” the Bigleys' recently-received postcard, which features Robert Peake's “Portrait of a Woman of Kentwell Hall, Suffolk,” and they take turns sizing up this famous oil painting. Emphasizing pattern, color recognition, lines, and shapes, the trio use collage art to analyze and reproduce the artwork, returning the postcard to its rightful place just before the Bigleys return home. Featuring several solid follow-up segments—a glossary, art comparisons (to the work of Matisse, Rodin, and Albers), a self-portrait postcard activity, a “Meet the Author” section narrated by Wallace, and a “Tour the Museum” with narration by Linda K. Friedlender (Curator of Education at the Yale Center for British Art)—Look! Look! Look! takes a creative approach to helping youngsters (ages 4-8) learn to appreciate the wide world of art. Recommended. Aud: K, E, P. (J. Williams-Wood)