Nikki Slade Robinson, I Am An Artist, Starfish Bay Children’s Books, June 2018, 32pp, $24.99 (hbk), ISBN: 9781760361013
A happy, energetic young girl leaps across the pages blissfully enjoying nature and the freedom to use her creativity to bring new ideas and experiences into her life.
This is a joyful picture book about the power of imagination. It reveals how any child can make art simply by using nature to create mountains, patterns, shapes and creatures of all kinds and descriptions – there is no limit to the magnificent works of art it is possible to create. The best thing it discloses is that anyone can be an artist by using the natural world around them such as clouds to make pictures, the rain puddles to make patterns or the sand to make mountains.
Niki Slade Robinson has used simple, sparse text and evocative double page illustrations, to highlight how easy and how much fun it is to be creative. In a world which is concerned about children burying their heads in mobile phones and ipads, this is an uplifting celebration of what can happen when they lift up their eyes and engage artistically with the miraculous natural world around them.
I Am An Artist is a fabulous picture book which speaks to the artist in all of us. Children aged 5 to 10 years in particular will be caught up in the enthusiasm for life and be inspired to use their own imaginations to look at the world around them in new ways and develop their creativity.
Reviewed by Grace Nolan
