Ralph Masiello's Bug Drawing Book

I purchased this for my 4 year old grand daughter and she was able to follow the directions and draw pictures of the bugs immediately. We have had hours of enjoyment with caterpillars, beetles, spiders and butterflys. She is learning science and doesn't know it!!!!! The directions and illustrations are large and easy to follow and the results are so individual it is hard to tell that they were "copied".

Unlike many simplified books for children to draw various things, this one isn't dumbed down too much. I have a 6-year-old who is a budding naturalist and who pays a lot of attention to the details of the things he studies. Where other bug books just show some random cross hatching on the dragonfly wings, this one cares about the artistry of those wings. I actually didn't purchase this book for drawing alone -- since starting "school work" my 6-year-old had taken to rushing through pages of work and it was quantity over quality. I thought that by working on drawing projects we might work a little on taking time and doing one's best. I looked at some of the author's other drawing books but they looked a little more complicated -- we chose this one because they seemed the simplest illustrations to begin with, and of course as a buding naturalist my son loves most bugs anyway (as long as they stay out of the house). He isn't a little Picasso (maybe that's a bad example, though at least Picasso was a child prodigy in art -- when he drew more realistically -- and my son isn't) but he has still come up with some nice drawings. Maybe one side of the his creepy crawlies might be smaller than the other side or slightly more angled, but he has still created illustrations -- thanks to this book -- that he is proud of and that as his mother I'm happy to stick up on the family blog or into the family scrapbook... most of all it DID help him start to think about taking his time, and I have watched his penmanship begin to improve again. It's a good springboard in science, too -- while beginning with this book we also watched the BBC series "Life in the Undergrowth" which was all about creepy crawlies. They complimented each other well and as he chose things to draw he could tell me things he had seen in the documentaries which helped me to know he was really learning from them, without me playing the annoying parent/teacher and trying to extact it all out of him in some way that would make him more self conscious. We'll definately be trying the author's other books later.

My 6 year old, who loves bugs, loves this book. The drawing instructions are are very simple for a child to follow, and he came up with some nice looking drawings. I uploaded some of his drawings. The book is made of strong, sturdy paper, good to last a while.

My 8-year-old daughter really enjoys and has success with this book. The finished drawings look very nice, and never like over-simplified step-by-step drawings, yet they are fairly easy for her to follow and reproduce. The colors he uses are beautiful and nicely done, providing more good ideas for the reader. I strongly recommend this book.