Ed Emberley's Drawing Book: Make a World

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful book that opens worlds
Review: This book was hands-down my absolute favorite in my early years, and I'm delighted to find that it is still in print. Emberley shows that, simply by using basic shapes, it's possible to create entire worlds of enormous detail. Each page contains numerous items (e.g. viking boat, diesel train engine, moose, greenhouse, etc.), with each item assembled shape-by-shape in its own row. This is truly a book that liberates the imagination.

Rating:
Summary: Make a World made my 4 year old son sit still by the hour.
Review: When my son turned four, he started making pictures with a pen. He showed no particular talent, but his chicken scratches sometimes looked cute. That's when I did a search on Amazon looking for children drawing instruction books. The Ed Emberley's series popped up, and I picked Make a World in addition to 3 others.

At first my child just looked at the books and smiled, so I started him out by drawing a blimp myself, showing him how to follow each step in the book. After he watched me do it, he also drew a blimp, following the simple picture instructions nicely (he couldn't read at all.) I then showed both blimps to my husband; he said he couldn't tell the difference. I couldn't either.

From that day on, my son spent 4, 5 HOURS per day with Make a World and drew various things in the book. With no encouragement from me! My mother was impressed, because my son is normally a hyperactive monkey that you can't tie down! Some of the instructions are very small, but he doesn't seem to have any trouble. The book lasted him months. If nothing else, it was a wonderful babysitter!

I showed some of his pictures to my friends; all were impressed that a four-year-old can draw such detailed, complex pictures. The trick is showing him how.

I am a math teacher and I don't care for art normally. However, I believe that drawing everyday objects at a younger age will help a child's spatial conception, which will be beneficial later towards learning geometry and trigonometry. That's just my opinion.

If you only want to get one Ed Emberley book, get this one because it has everything. (though the others are great too!)