Robot Drawing Book by Ralph Masiello

Robot Drawing Book by Ralph Masiello

Rating: 5 stars

This book was on display behind the circulation desk last week.  My kids are so comfortable at the library that Ben saw it and promptly asked the librarian if he could check it out.  Invite us to your library: we'll take your displays apart.  That's how we roll.  (From a different perspective, that display sure worked!  Ben and Lorelei each threw in a couple of art books into our bag.)

And the even neater thing: When we got home, all three kids sat around our kitchen table, fighting for a spot that gave them a good view of this book.  They sat and drew--even little Kiefer!--for 20-25 minutes while I got dinner ready.  I admit that there was a little elbow action as they vied for better positions.  Such is life when you've got three kids who want to look at the same book.

There isn't much to read, so these books
are great for older not-yet-readers, too!

Ben was the most enthralled by the book.  He took the book up to his room at bedtime and sat drawing robots during his quiet reading time.  Robots surrounded him!  And the neat thing about this book is that the robots are all made of lines and shapes--nothing more complicated than that.  There are step-by-step directions and, if you follow them, your robot REALLY looks like the picture!  Anyone attempting any art--whether it's watercolor or a poem or stick figures or a book--would agree that the end result is rarely what you first see in your head.  And I think for kids that's true even more frequently.  Wonderfully, they are not hung up about it as often as we perfectionist adults are.  But Ben was very proud of himself when his robot was a solid twin of the artist-author's robot.

Ralph Masiello has a bunch of these step-by-step drawing books, including Dinosaurs, Halloween, Fairies, Bugs, Dragons, and On the Farm.  I think we're going to have to check them out.  All of them.  So if you're in Fairfax County and you're interested in checking them out of the system, well...you might just want to wait a few weeks.  Or I'll race you for them!

Some of Ben's robots.  Or, his Ben-bots?