How to Draw Birds

School Library Journal

Gr 2 Up Both of these books follow the same format: materials needed are listed at the beginning (but never mentioned again); line drawings highlighted with blue give drawing instructions in three to five steps; one- to two-sentence descriptions of each subject are included. Neither has information about correct coloration of individual birds or flowers, and there is no instruction in perspective or shading as techniques. How to Draw Flowers is the more successful and useful of the two. Kinnealy devotes one page to each variety of flower, thereby providing room for successive stages of simple line drawings before completing the final picture. It also devotes one page to introducing the parts of a flower. The problem with How to Draw Birds is that too many birds are included on each pageas many as five, with two or three steps for each, on a double-page spread. Each bird does have a brief description, but this does little more than add to the confusion. Patricia Homer, Lowville Academy, N.Y.