In The Garden With Van Gogh by Julie Merberg and Suzanne Bober

Title: In The Garden With Van Gogh
Author: Julie Merberg and Suzanne Bober
Publisher: Roundtable Press
Rating: WORTHY!

This is an amazing book for young children telling a story based around paintings by Vincent Van Gogh.

It features a whole series of the pictures and the story is woven, using them to illustrate the tale:

Sunflowers (1888)

Irises (1889)

Olive Grove (1889) Women Picking Olives (1889) The Sower (1888) The Reaper (1889) The Siesta (actually, 'Noon Rest From Work') (1890) First Steps (1890) The Starry Night (1889)

The paintings featured are nearly all from his Arles period which ended December 23, 1888 when he had himself committed after cutting off his own ear (not illustrated here!). The asylum was where he painted The Starry Night. The paintings are are listed in the back of the book, but they appear to have missed Van Gogh's Haystacks in Provence (1888) between The Reaper and The Siesta. That latter picture and First Steps were painted in 1890, the year Van Gogh appears to have committed suicide (although the gun was never found!).

I recommend this. There's also a companion volume titled A Magical Day With Matisse, which I haven't seen, but which I imagine would be quite as charming as this one was. I also noted when postign this that there are several others in the series: Cassatt, Degas, Gaugin, Matisse, Monet, Picasso, Renoir, Rousseau, Seurat