Bonjour, Mr. Satie by Tomie DePaola

Bonjour, Mr. Satie by Tomie DePaola

Rating: 4 stars

I'm not a huge fan of teaching my kids about specific artists or works of art or wonders of the world. C'mon, they are 3 and 1 1/2--they have years to memorize stuff like that. Right now, all I care about is that they think it is fun and cool to do art projects like drawing or painting or gluing or stuff like that. (Right now, as I type, Lorelei is coloring in a new coloring book with a bold red marker, making everything on the page she's on and the page that's behind that one look completed soaked in blood. Ew.)  I know that some parents tote their toddlers to art museums (a la Olivia) and I expect to do that in a few years, especially because we live so close to some good ones in D.C., but...not yet.  This book is a good first step, I think, and would be appreciated by a 4- or 5-year old before a trip to an art museum (whether that trip is next week or a few months away).

So I wouldn't have searched this book out at all, but it was on a large stack of Tomie DePaola books at our great local library. Lorelei chose it and we brought it home without reading it.  I'll teach her the whole don't-judge-a-book-by-its-cover thing later. 

So, here's what happens in the book:  Mr. Satie is a world-traveling cat who speaks of his adventures in Paris to his feline niece and nephew. He explains how how his "friends" Pablo (Picasso) and Henri (Matisse) get into an argument about whose paintings are better. So they have a painting contest, and the wise and fair Mr. Satie is the lone judge. After careful study (that page is my favorite--no words, just him examining DePaola's renditions of Picasso and Matisse's works) he declares that the works are like apples and oranges; both are delicious, but totally different. It's a draw! Hooray!

There are so many things to learn from this book, aside from learning the basic fact that there are these two famous painter dudes named Pablo and Henri (their last names are never mentioned, making them more approachable to little Lorelei and other pint-sized bookworms):

• Art is a serious undertaking, a job worth pursuing
• Passionate and heated debates are (usually) healthy
• Things can be similar, but different
• There doesn't have to be only one winner
• Cats have relationships with famous artists

Ok, so that last one is a stretch. And it's the main reason why I'm left with a furrowed brow as I write about this book. Why doesn't Tomie DePaola let all the characters be human? Why does he need to bring to life one of Picasso's paintings and let a cat have the main story? Ok, I guess that it helps draw little readers in and make it less realistic and therefore just a little more fun and imaginative, which is what art is often about.