What Can You Do With a Line?

A playful little sprite carries readers into the world of lines! For the developing mind, this introduction is done in a colourful and fanciful way, capturing the inquisitive spirit that lives within children ages 3-7. They are seeking to understand the world they see around them and making sense of what they are seeing for the first time. What Can You Do With a Line? captures the wonder of something we see all around us - lines. It invites little ones to imagine and explore for themselves what a line can do.

The sprite begins with types of lines that can be created with all sorts of colours. With his toolkit of pencils, felts, paint brushes and rollers, he draws lines that are short, long, thin, and thick. Things get more interesting when lines curl into shapes and the sprite is hanging from circles, holding up ovals and framed inside squares. This is a great introduction to vocabulary of art. There is potential for great discussion between adult and child.

Later in the book comes the connection to how lines can express emotion – spreading happiness and working through sadness and confusion. Lines can create joy in music and beauty in nature. Then comes the invitation to children to experiment for themselves with chalk, pastel, crayon, paints, sponges, cotton balls and more.

The pictures are inviting, entertaining and instructional. The sprite moves around all over the page – sometimes standing painting with a long-handled roller with a paper hat and sometimes flying with a cape! Readers’ eyes move all over the page as the illustrator makes great use of space. When the author introduces the concept of lines creating shapes, the shapes are painted with imaginative colours, designs and also made to look like recognizable objects – a mouth eating watermelon, fish swimming in a river which turn into musical notes on a musical staff with sprites playing musical instruments underneath. Finally, a connection is made to common drawings, and the viewer automatically searches for the lines that make up the drawings.

What Can You Do With a Line? is a delightful dive into playful exploration, something children are great at!