Renaissance

Children's Literature

It is hard to resist a book filled with gorgeous reproductions of masterpieces by artists ranging from Durer, the van Eycks and Perugino to Michelangelo, Raphael and Leonardo. This title in the series "Movements in Art" from Creative Education, is worth buying for the pictures alone. As well, the text is as colorful as the artwork, only fitting in a book about one of the most exciting and influential periods in the history of Western European culture. Individual descriptions of the great artists of the Renaissance are succinct and vivid. The author manages to tie artistic and architectural masterworks to historical events and trends of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. A timeline, glossary and an index are included at the end of the book. Some features, such as "Places to Visit" sidebars tucked throughout, seem a bit unrealistic—how many youngsters are likely to be going to the Vatican Museums or the Uffizi after reading this book? A table of contents might have been useful, rather than plunging directly into the text after the title page. Quibbles aside, however, this book is a valuable and beautiful resource for grade school and middle school classrooms. 2006, Creative Education, Ages 9 up.
—Michele Tremaine