Growing Reader
Tween
Teen
Dare to Doodle: 7 Unconventional Drawing Books for Kids
by Denise Schipani
My father, who filled sketchbooks with WWII planes and ships as a child and is now a watercolorist, tried his darnedest to teach me things like perspective and shading … but I just didn’t get it. If there’s an art gene, it skipped over me and landed hard on my younger son, who compulsively doodles — stick figures with personality, robots, monsters — on just about every piece of paper he finds, from math homework to store receipts.
Maybe it’s the graphic novels he’s partial to (chiefly the Wimpy Kid books), or his discovery a few years back of Calvin & Hobbes, but he’s decided he’ll be a cartoonist and has begun filling his own notebooks with cartoon creations. So naturally I’m eagle-eyed when it comes to searching out books about drawing. What I’ve been looking for lately, though, are less conventional drawing books, and more books that inspire kids to draw without rules or steps (or only a few rules!).
Here, a handful I’ve found that straddle the line between drawing books and books about how to draw:
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Mightier Than the Sword
Prepare to save Astorya from the evil Queen Rulette in this wildly fun and interactive adventure book. In this entirely fictional world, the reader is pulled into the action and able to shape the story. Filled with Mad Lib style activities, wacky mazes and word scrambles, and drawings to complete, young artists will want to keep their pencils sharp as they write, draw, and scribble their way to the end of the story.
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Oodles of Doodles: Over 200 Pictures to Complete and Create
On each page of Oodles of Doodles is a partly-formed doodle that your kid — it’s aimed mostly at younger scribblers — can fill out however he or she sees fit. Think of this one a bridge between a coloring book (possibly too limiting for a kid who wants to draw free) and a blank sketchbook (potentially too intimidating).
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The Drawing Lesson: A Graphic Novel That Teaches You How to Draw
Young artists might know Mark Crilley from his popular YouTube channel featuring how-to-draw videos. In The Drawing Lesson, Crilley presents readers with the story of a boy named David and his drawing teacher, Becky, in the form of a graphic novel. As David gets his lessons (in many aspects of drawing, including that pesky shading and perspective my patient father tried to teach me), so does the reader, who also gets accompanying lessons to try in a sketchbook of his or her own.
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Star Wars Doodles
"Star Wars" fans will love this a doodle-prompter. In a similar vein as Oodles and Doodles, Star Wars Doodles contains incomplete drawings; young artists (and Jedis-in-training) use their imaginations to finish the illustrations.
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Doodle Adventures 1: The Search for the Slimy Space Slugs!
I’ll admit upfront that the cover of Doodle Adventures 1: The Search for the Slimy Space Slugs!, had me hooked before I even handed it over to my son to try. Why? It’s right in my boy’s (and, I suspect, lots of other kid artists’) wheelhouse — the combo of a graphic novel with the ability to draw yourself into the story. My instinct that my budding cartoonist would like it was proven prescient when I had to remind him to put it down and eat, shower, go to bed, and so on. Good news: It’s only the first in a series!
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The Action-Packed Book of Adventure Doodles: 187 Fun and Exciting Drawings You Can Finish Yourself
Pirates? Spacemen? Wizards? Aliens? Ask any super-imaginative doodler and you’ll get a “yes, please!” In The Action-Packed Book of Adventure Doodles kids can indulge their fantasies with drawing prompts that inspire flights of fancy.
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The Sketchbook Project Journal: More Than 300 Ways to Fill a Page
The guided-prompt style of this book is designed for more sophisticated sketchers. While it’s technically aimed at adults, that doesn’t mean a motivated tween or teen prodigy with a pencil wouldn’t love to follow the prompts (like “Diagrams of the best sandwich known to man”). The book is a companion to the crowd-funded Sketchbook Project, which allows artists the world over to send a filled sketchbook in and have it added to a permanent collection called The Brooklyn Art Project.
Does your young artist have a favorite book about drawing? Let us know in the comments section below!