Three Books to Know by MaryAnn Kohl

Notes From the Reading Nook: October 24

Hi there, you gorgeous creature.

So many things went wrong with this newsletter in the past two weeks — I accidentally hit send when I was trying to schedule my recent AMA; when I decided to republish that post, it failed to actually make it to your inboxes; I am somehow suddenly behind on the work (HOW?)… I could go on, but I won’t. I’ve had more than one occasion in the past seven days to (go back to my hotel room during a work trip and shake and) catalog my mistakes — and if you don’t think I mean write out an actual list, you don’t know me at all — but I’ve decided to be an imperfectionist, insofar as that’s possible for me. Not only is Can we read? not the only thing on my plate (HA! HA HA HA HA HA), I am also just a human, doing the best I can.

If you are also just a human doing the best you can, it’s okay. So many people love you (in spite of, and maybe even because of this). If you, too, are feeling overwhelmed and frustrated and saddened by things outside of your control, things entirely in your control that you managed to bungle up anyway, unspeakable and crushing world sorrow, low energy, regular life ennui, unfinished business that seems so simple and yet the other party involved is still avoiding you and any sort of resolution or closure — or any/all of the above — come sit by me.

Extreme subject change, quickly: I’ve got a piece of news for any fervent Jan Brett fans out there — in late November, Brett is heading out on the road for a national bus tour. Literally, she has her own bus, see:

If you’ve been reading this newsletter since close to the very beginning (my god, thank you for putting up with me all this time), you’ll remember that it took me ages to, well, get on the Jan Brett bus. I was just consistently underwhelmed, but since my eldest was, at the time, the President, Vice President, and number uno hype man for Jan Brett, I got over whatever my problem was and leaned in. (Hedgie helped 🦔 and yes, mentioning Hedgie was only partially an excuse to use the hedgehog emoji, which is one of my favorites and yet woefully underutilized in my life.)

In any case, when I told this same child — who never wants to do anything or go anywhere, btw — that Jan Brett is coming to Madison in December, she immediately said, “Do we need tickets?” (Yes, and I will get them, so help me.)

If you have a Jan Brett lover yourself, here’s her tour schedule:

You can also check the schedule here if your eyesight, like mine, takes a beating from reading tiny, somewhat blurry print

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• The Zombie Nite Café by Merrily Kutner

• Nora’s Castle by Satimo Ichikawa (I reviewed this in issue No. 13)

• Wolfie the Bunny by Ame Dyckman

• Old Mother Hubbard by Alice and Martin Provensen (issue No. 7 — my 7yo still loves this book despite the fact that it’s for toddlers)

(I can count on one finger the books that have made me cry in my lifetime, but this past weekend, the number changed to two when I read the incredible A Long Time Coming: A Lyrical Biography of Race in America from Ona Judge to Barack Obama by Ray Anthony Shepard. None of the people Shepard wrote about — Ona Judge, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells, Martin Luther King Jr., and Barack Obama — were new to me, but he managed to take their stories, weave them into powerful nonfiction in verse, and reveal their lives to me anew in a way that was so moving, I cried. I didn’t read it with my children but I had to mention it, and say I cannot recommend it highly enough.)

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Do you know MaryAnn Kohl? If the answer is no, consider this your introduction: newsletter subscriber, MaryAnn.

I own an almost embarrassing number of MaryAnn Kohl books. Why? No, not because I have thousands of books in my home (though that is true), but because I could pick any one of her titles off my shelf to share with you and I’d stand behind all of them, that’s how highly I regard Kohl, her ideas for children, and her overall philosophy, which is all about process over product. (I am myself all about process over product, as a person, in art and in life, in case that’s not already clear.)

I really cannot recommend her books enough, and I don’t think you can go wrong with any of them — even though some, like the ones I review below, seem to be aimed at specific age groups or even types of art. (The single exception to my recommendation is Global Art: Activities, Projects, and Inventions From Around the World, which includes some culturally insensitive projects.) The beauty of her books — and the idea of process over product itself — is that you can make any of it, really any of it, your own, adapting it to the kids you actually have in front of you, in a broad age range, in your real surroundings, not some impeccable, impossible, Pinterest-picture dedicated art room or project.

And I can tell you, as the mother of a child with some sensory challenges, that the extensive variety of sensory experiences Kohl offers are priceless. Not saying I’d substitute occupational therapy for an entirely Kohl-based curriculum, but there is absolutely a place for Kohl’s work in the life of anyone navigating the world of OT or trying to supplement a sensory diet.

Now for some books.

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First Art for Toddlers and Twos: Open-Ended Art Experiences by MaryAnn F. Kohl (2002)

This review first appeared in issue No. 18 — I’ve edited and updated it here.

Yes, this is a book for the tiniest of children; yes, it is still my favorite book of hers (this remains true even three years after first writing this review, for anyone who’s counting).

This one contains some of our favorite art experiences to repeat again and again (and again), and lest you forget: I no longer have toddlers or twos, these “projects” are just that satisfying and, I believe, do much to develop what Waldorf education would consider the energy and spirit of children. (This is a simplistic explanation but I will spare you the pedagogy. In short: dough and clay are important. The end.)

Kohl’s recipe for Stretchy Dough remains our favorite of all time (even I cannot keep my hands off it, the sensory pleasure is so deep). Not every experience is Stretchy Dough, not every one of her books is a winner from beginning to end, but: I don’t need an art project book that tells me how to teach my kids to create a perfect, single-outcome thing. I don’t care about that in the least. This book is all what you make of it — it’s all the process, not the product, and damn if I don’t think that’s a pretty good motto not just for art but for life.

(Isn’t that what I just said above? 😂 2020 me agreed.)

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Mudworks: Creative Clay, Dough, and Modeling Experiences by MaryAnn F. Kohl (1989)

This review first appeared in issue No. 45 — I’ve edited and updated it here

First let’s talk about clay, dough, and modeling: it’s fantastic. That’s my whole opinion.

Since they were tiny, I have given my children nearly every art supply and material imaginable (I committed myself, from day one, to dealing with messes, because it’s more important to me they have have deep and authentic experience with making and creating than it is to save my kitchen counters or table from paint splatters or my floor from 14,496 scraps of paper — to this day there is a smudge of blue finger paint on my shower curtain from my eldest at about 18 months old and it makes me smile every time I notice it anew) — but nothing, and I really mean nothing, has affected and benefitted them as much as getting their hands on and into some dough/clay.

It’s hard for me to explain this outside of recounting my own sensory experience (and extreme pleasure) alongside them: when we make up one of the recipes in this book, my hands take over, my mind goes blank, and I am purely in my body, a rare and most welcome thing for me. I can tell that at least this level of enjoyment happens for my children as well.

In any case, Mudworks is a treasure trove of recipes and ideas and materials — experiences in this book call for a wide range of diverse mediums, not at all limited to clay or dough but expanding to wilder territory like toothpaste, starch, sand, salt, coffee, cornmeal, cotton balls, even dryer lint. How can one not love this? (I love this so much.)

(If you have a kiddo who knows the toothpaste-squeezing scene in Ramona and Her Mother — which my children and I still talk about, three years after reading that book — the toothpaste activity alone is worth at least checking your library for this book.)

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Art With Anything: 52 Weeks of Fun Using Everyday Stuff by MaryAnn F. Kohl (2010)Kohl (2010)

This review first appeared in issue No. 71 — I’ve edited and updated it here

Art With Anything is another excellent title, but this one rises even further above the rest in my book (pun! fist pump!) because of its focus on using what you already have, especially — and I realize this may not appeal to some of you, but it greatly appeals to me — digging through your recycling bin to make, you guessed it, art with anything.

The organization of this book is intriguing: the premise is that you will focus on one art supply (buttons, coffee grounds, address labels) for a week: the art prompt on Monday is the simplest of all, and increases in difficulty and level of exploration until Friday. (So, to be clear, you not only get the idea of doing art with unconventional media/repurposed items, you get five points from which to jump off.)

As you can see, our copy has been used and abused from all my hours of looking through it and creating invitations to play for my children — the ultimate compliment and proof of its staying power. Every project is adaptable for toddlers all the way up to middle school, especially if you have kiddos who enjoy creating art and/or looking at, say, berry baskets, aluminum foil, masking tape, grocery bags, or egg cartons and wondering: “What could I make with that?”

(🖐️ Me. I am the one who enjoys doing this. But so do my kids, I swear.)

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My other favorite Kohl books include:

• Preschool Art: It’s the Process, Not the Product

• Scribble Art: Independent Process Art Experiences for Children

• Big Messy Art Book: But Easy to Clean Up

• Discovering Great Artists: Hands-On Art Experiences in the Styles of Great Masters

And if you’re interested in similar-ish books (and ones that might spark new or additional ideas), check out my 2021 Spotlight On: Makers and making:

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Read good books and take good care 😘
Sarah

P.S. All Bookshop.org links are affiliate ones. They pay me in paperclips. Which I then use to make art with anything. (Jk, jk: I appreciate every commission, however tiny.)