Monday, February 18, 2019

Book Review: The Artful Parent 2nd Edition


Artful Parent - Simple Ways to Fill Your Family's Life with Art and Creativity by Jean Van't Hul
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Because I adore Jean Van’t Hul and I was silently hoping the second version of The Artful Parent would contain thousands of ideas of awesome projects to do with kids. But, then I remind myself that isn’t the POINT of the book. Although there are dozens of amazing books full of ideas to do with kids, this one TEACHES parents and other adults about the why and the how.

I own the first iteration of The Artful Parent and it has served me well in two ways. First, I’ve used the information she provides as a resource when teaching parents the importance of creating art, being creative, and the general “why” art is important when you have kids. The second way I’ve used this book is as a resource of art projects to do with kids both in storytimes and in art classes I’ve been fortunate enough to teach the past several years.


Knowing and loving the first book made me impressed with this second iteration. I wasn’t sure how much would be updated and expanded. The simple answer is everything. I love how fleshed out the educational areas are and all of the new information Jean has discovered in the past five+ years is presented in an easy to use resource.

I highly recommend this book for parents and teachers of young children who are in either one of two situations. The first being they are not naturally creative (or don’t FEEL that they are), but know it is important and want to provide those experiences for their children. The second is that they are creative and they have a child who isn’t as comfortable or is unsure of how to create, use their imagination, or isn’t as free with their ideas. I think that this book provides so much education on how to experience the artistic process together as a family (although it can absolutely be used in a class-type setting as I’ve used it).


Thanks to NetGalley for the early copy of this book - the opinions in this review are entirely my own.


View all my reviews

No comments:

Post a Comment