Visual Art in Childrens Books

Visual Art in Childrens Books

Anholt, Laurence. Degas and the Little Dancer
Anno's travel books -- _Anno's USA_ and especially _Anno's Journey_ -- incorporate numerous visual allusions to different paintings and other cultural artifacts, though that's not really the same as basing a book on a specific painting. (Somewhere at the back of my mind I keep thinking I have heard of a book that extended the story in a famous painting -- but nothing more specific is coming to mind.)
Borton de Trevino. I, Juan de Pareja, Inspired by a Velazquez painting, with certain facts in place, but mostly an imagined account of how the painting came to be
Browne, Anthony - Picture books contain many references to well- known paintings particularly the surrealist Rene Magritte. The intertextuality is fun to pick up.
Chevalier, Tracy. The Girl with the Pearl Earring, about the painting of a particular Vermeer canvass. Technically an adult book but if I were book talking to young adults this would be on my list.
Falconer, Ian. Olivia. This book doesn't totally qualify, but has a scene where she goes to the museum, and sees a Pollock, and tries to make her own Pollock when she goes home. They do use an actual repro of Jackson's work though.
Hutchins, Pat. The Mona Lisa Mystery
Konigsburg, E. L. "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" (although as far as I know, the angel is not an actual work)
Laden, Nina. "When Pigasso met Mootisse"
LeTord, Bijou. A Blue Butterfly :A Story About Claude Monet
Mathers, Petra. "Victor and Christobel" (1993) seems not to have made much of a stir, but I think it is a wonderful book. It contains a small reproduction of "Vittore Carpaccio's painting _Saint Ursula's Dream_ (ca. 1495) which hangs in the Galleria Dell'Accademia in Venice, [and] was the inspiration for Petra Mathers's _Cousin Christabel on Her Sickbed_ (1992), which appears in this book."
Micklethwaite, Lucy. I Spy a Freight Train: Transportation in Art
Micklethwaite, Lucy. I Spy An Alphabet in Art
Micklethwaite, Lucy. I Spy Two Eyes: Numbers in Art
Ouida, "A Dog of Flanders" that involves a young boy and a famous painting by Rubens.
Pilkey, Dav _Paperboy_ uses Van Gogh's "Starry Night" as the background throughout -- I think he even acknowledges it in the book. A number of Pilkey's other books play off famous paintings, too: Whistler's Mother, the Mona Lisa, and Chagall's I and the Village all show up in _When Cats Dream_, the latter providing central imagery for the dream. American Gothic is worked into his Thanksgiving book, and his _God Bless the Gargoyles_ not only uses gargoyles from cathedrals, but also Hopper's Nighthawks.
Posy, LULU AND THE FLYING BABIES
Say, Allen THE SIGN PAINTER (Houghton) references Edward Hopper's Night Hawks & Early Sunday Morning
Sweeney, Joan. "Suzette and the Puppy" by Joan Sweeney. It is the fictionalized story of how Mary Cassatt came to paint "Little Girl in a Blue Armchair," a painting exhibited at the National Gallery of Art.
Weitzman, Jacqueline Press. You Can't Take A Balloon Into the Metropolitan Museum
Weitzman, Jacqueline Press. You Can't Take A Balloon Into the National Gallery Micklethwaite, Lucy. I Spy Animals in Art
Willard, Nancy. _Pish Posh, Said Hieronymus Bosch_ doesn't draw on a specific work (I don't think), but does create a fictitious life for the painter based on the bizarre creatures in his paintings.
Wooding, Sharon - The Painter's Cat - beautiful book set in Renaissance Italy.

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