*The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse is my favorite book by Eric Carle (2011). The multicolored title promises that brightly colored content awaits inside the book. That promise is fulfilled. Eric Carle’s animals fill large two-page spreads. The text’s only mission is to label the pictures. First, we meet the artist standing at a canvas. “I am an artist and I paint . . .a blue horse and . . .” Each page is magical. The blue horse canters across the pages, brown mane and tail flowing. A red crocodile bears sharp teeth in an enormous open mouth. A yellow cow shines brightly against a night sky with stars. A pink rabbit, green lion, orange elephant, purple fox, black polar bear, and polka-dotted donkey all remind us that an artist sees the world in a special way. Eric Carle validates the artist on the last page: “I am a good artist.”
The most significant part of this book is the back matter. Eric Carle shows us Blue Horse I, (1911) by Franz Marc! There's a one-paragraph biography of Franz Marc and an explanation of why Eric Carle created this book. When he was a young painter, his art teacher at the time defied the Nazis by showing him forbidden “modern impressionistic or abstract art.” Carle is quoted, “‘My green lion, polka-dotted donkey and other animals painted in the ‘wrong’ colors were really born that day seventy years ago.’”
