Benford Draws a Blank - Danielle Dufayet

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AUTHOR: Danielle Dufayet

ILLUSTRATOR: Katia Klein
GENRE: Children's Picture Book
RATING: 4 stars.

A cute story about a little boy facing a painting block.

Benford loves art, to the extent that his little dog is named ‘Van Gogh’. When he (Benford, not Van Gogh) receives an easel and a huge white canvas as a birthday gift, Benford is stumped – what can he draw on such a beautiful white canvas without spoiling it? He tries his best to think of ideas, but nothing helps. Will Benford be able to defeat his painting block and think of an artistic idea for that canvas?

The pressure of perfection, the fear of taking the first step, the difficulties of thinking of the right idea – all are problems that children deal with, whether in painting or writing or any other activity. Through Benford, they will hopefully understand that these are normal problems and that there is always a solution if you can just take a break and return to the problem with a calm mind.

The story is like an ode to Van Gogh (the painter, not the dog) who wasn’t a trained artist but created almost 900 paintings in ten years. The book delivers an important message in a simple way, and also offers tips on how to deal with painting blocks. I found these very practical and child-friendly.

The language is the book is quite simple for its target range of PreK-2 readers.

The illustrations are cute without going over the top. Some pages have Benford seeing squares everywhere; these are sketched especially well.

Overall, definitely a nice story with a relevant lesson to learn. Recommended not just to little artists but to every little reader to understand that creativity does have off days at times, and it is okay to take a break rather than stressing out about it.

My thanks to Capstone and NetGalley for the DRC of “Benford Draws a Blank”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

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