*The Art Room by Susan Vande Griek (2002) is a poetic story rendered gorgeous by Pascal Mileli’s illustrations. Just look at the breathtaking cover art! Magnificent. This setting is the early 1900s. On the first page, a mother and her two children read a newspaper ad for Miss M. Emily Carr’s art classes. It's the book jacket that says this story is about “famous Northwest Coast painter Emily Carr.” When I search for Granville Street, Google Maps takes me to Vancouver, BC, Canada. The narrative consists of long, musical sentences. In Miss Carr’s art room “We perched on stools while Sally perched on Miss Carr; and we copied casts of hands, heads of friends, as ‘out artist’ danced and sang her way through the room, pointing out, rubbing out, aching, naying or demonstrating, getting us to make paint fly and paper come alive.” It’s a story of a day spent in art class and it’s simply magical.
