Independent Reading Level: Kindergarten-4th grade
Awards: Oppenheim Platinum Toy Award, Borders Books' Original Voices 2003 Award, Christopher Medal, American Library Association's 2005 Carnegie Medal of Excellence.

This book made me want to draw something! ( )

A student believes that they cannot draw. The teacher tells them to make any mark to prove she can draw. This is just an uplifting story raising up students from nothing. I would have this in my classroom for the ideal alone.

The character Vashti, very sad thinks that she can't draw, her art teacher tells her to try to draw whatever she wants and she just draws a dot on a paper and signs it, Vashti seeing what she did, decided to try to do better for her teacher and tries to create more different dots. A nice story full of teaching for the little ones showing them that it is good to be encouraged to learn new things, with time you will create great things, but very important, helping others to learn. ( )

PreSchool-Grade 4-"Just make a mark and see where it takes you." This sage advice, offered by her intuitive, intelligent teacher, sets our young heroine on a journey of self-expression, artistic experimentation, and success. First pictured as being enveloped by a blue-and-gray miasma of discouragement and dejection, Vashti seems beaten by the blank paper before her. It is her defeatist declaration, "I just CAN'T draw," that evokes her teacher's sensitive suggestion. Once the child takes that very first stab at art, winningly and economically dramatized by Reynolds's fluid pen-and-ink, watercolor, and tea image of Vashti swooping down upon that vacant paper in a burst of red-orange energy, there's no stopping her. Honoring effort and overcoming convention are the themes here. Everything about this little gem, from its unusual trim size to the author's hand-lettered text, from the dot-shaped cocoons of carefully chosen color that embrace each vignette of Vashti to her inventive negative-space masterpiece, speaks to them. Best of all, with her accomplishment comes an invaluable bonus: the ability and the willingness to encourage and embolden others. With art that seems perfectly suited to the mood and the message of the text, Reynolds inspires with a gentle and generous mantra: "Just make a mark."