Little Pea’s Drawing School

Little Pea has had such great success as a painter of postage stamps – he has completed collections featuring flowers, insects, mountains, and trees – that his friends have begun to see him as an art expert and line up to ask him for advice to improve their work. He is so encouraging of their efforts that they suggest he open a drawing school to share instruction more widely. He welcomes students into a classroom tucked into a hollow at the bottom of a large tree with upside-down bottle caps for stools and playing cards for easels.

The inviting world in which Little Pea lives is a mixture of household items repurposed for his use, things like the cozy matchbox he uses for a bed, and a wild neighbourhood of plants and bushes which surround him. All of this is a backdrop for his students who consist of insects as tiny as a midge fly to beetles and cockroaches who stand taller than Little Pea. Some are coloured realistically as with the browns and greens of a caterpillar, but there are others, like a vibrant blue tarantula who populate the classroom. The insects are drawn with smiling faces and walk through the forest carrying portfolios or rolled up pieces of paper under their wings – Little Pea has set up his drawing school in the perfect place. With great enthusiasm, everyone lines up for a chance to be part of the first day of classes which include an “introduction to drawing, pencil, watercolor, still life and portrait”. Little Pea encourages students of all skill levels, finding something kind to say about their efforts as he reviews their paintings. He helps each one to find a way to shine in the classroom, even renting a tiny pink van so they can take a field trip to a museum. At the end of the book, they celebrate with an end-of-the-year show, and a student who had been struggling surprises the class and teacher by creating something spectacular.

Little Pea’s Drawing School is a pleasing mixture of reality and fantasy where a tiny human artist can be a teacher to a classroom filled with insects with a passion for art. Each page has details that draw the eye from the tiny clasped hands of a caterpillar waiting for Little Pea to review her portfolio to a perpetually disorganized flying ant who is always losing things as she rushes to class. The humour in the illustrations is mirrored in the language of the text with clever wordplay and puns which further build the personality of a gentle postage stamp artist. His insect students are inspired by his support of their efforts to be creative, and Little Pea’s Drawing School would be a beautiful way for young readers to feel the same.