The Shape Game

By Anthony Browne

Book Overview

Art makes a difference! The same family that had such an enlightening experience in Anthony Browne's Zoo is now going to an art museum, Mom's choice for her birthday treat. But wisecracking Dad and their two sons are skeptical about how much fun this trip will be, and they're not quite sure what to make of the art. ("What on earth is that supposed to be?" asks Dad.) But, with Mom's help, once the boys start really looking at the paintings, they begin to find what pleasures they contain. Most of the family leave with a new appreciation of art - Dad is just never going to get it - as well as a sketchbook. On the trip home, Mom teaches the boys - and readers - a drawing game, which one of her sons (this book's author) has been playing ever since.This new book is the product of Anthony Browne's engagement as writer-and-illustrator-in-residence at the Tate Britain in London. There he worked with a thousand children from inner-city schools, teaching literature using the resources in the gallery - and playing the shape game. In his artwork for the book, he surreally transforms, in his signature style, some famous paintings in the Tate's collection.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374367647
• ISBN13: 9780374367640
• Release Date: September 2003
• Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
• Length: 32 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 11.2" x 10.9"
• Age Range: 5 to 10 years
• Grade Range: Kindergarten to Grade 5

Customer Reviews

For 5-10 yr olds?

I like the concept of the book, however, the painting the mother chooses to examine for "clues" in the contextual details to tell "more of the story" of the painting relates to a wife's affair. What's also odd is that the mother begins by asking, "Does it remind you of a family we know?" before highlighting the details including "an open door showing that the mother will have to leave home." This is not a topic I want to explore with my elementary school art students.

We now play the "shape game"

Reading other reviews, this book is for grade-one and up (not preK). My son is very interested in art, and this book helped showed him a link between his work and the works by the author. I also love the way Anthony Browne makes fun of his characters, it makes them real and in the end, adorable (like the boy's Dad). My son and I often play the shape game together. Check out all of Anthony Browne's books, they are quite different from your avergae kid's books (we have 10!).

Love it!

As an English teacher I love Anthony Browne's books. There is always so much to 'read' apart from the written words. My 4 and 8yo love this book - esp the "sausage" painting and dad's lame jokes! It usually inspires a few rounds of the shape game between us as well.

They don't know art but they know what they like

It doesn't strike you as particularly British the first time you read through it. Nor does it strike you as American. What "The Shape Game" offers the average reader is a family that is trying to connect with art any way it can. The story is an autobiographical piece about how a single trip to the Tate Museum with his family changed the artist's way of looking at art forever. The players in this mini-drama include the author/illustrator as a child, his brother George, his Dad, and his Mom (not Mum?). One day the mother drags the family to the museum despite their mumblings and grumblings. We see a shot of them walking, all grays and browns, next to the river. Inside, the family starts to offer comments on what they see. In what may well be my favorite line in a picture book published in the last five years, the father asks what a particular sculpture is: "It's supposed to be a mother and child", said Mom. "Well, why isn't it?" said Dad. He has a point. As they continue, however, they start to identify with what they're seeing. There's a section explaining the Augustus Egg painting, "Past and Present No. 1" that is nothing short of phenomenal. I only wish Browne had taken the time to give this sort of attention to more paintings found throughout the Tate. The kids start imagining their dad in some of the pictures (he fits in remarkably well in a lot of them) and by the end everyone has had a good time. The shot of them walking home is infused with all sorts of colors. On the ride home, Anthony's mom shows him the Shape Game. All you have to do is to draw a shape. Any shape at all. Then you pass this shape to another person and they have to change it into something that makes sense. Browne concludes, "And, in a way, I've been playing the shape game ever since..." After completing this story in my own time, I was struck by the thought that this book is an excellent companion piece to the rather similar picture book, "Uncle Andy's". In both stories, the author/illustrators reflect on why they decided to create art in the first place. For James Warhola the decision came from hanging out with his cool Uncle Andy (Warhol). In this book, the artist began drawing after seeing the range of artistic possibilities at the Tate. I wish I could say that the book is flawless, but a couple things bugged me here and there. For one thing, I don't know when Anthony Browne was born but the fashions and haircuts presented in this story look oddly contemporary to me. Also, the style of drawing changes violently at times. Sometimes he'll make his characters beautifully lifelike and realistic. The next thing you know they're cartoonish and off-putting (especially the section where the father imagines himself chased by a lion). Still, Browne has a wonderful way of matching his characters' movements to the movements found in the pictures behind them. I also was very taken with the fact that the portraits featured in this story are relatively unknown to the vast m