I picked this up because I like many of the books he has done, such as The Wisdom Bird.

Having recently read an autobiography of Maria Tallchief done for children, I was again impressed by how much the support and encouragement of a parent enabled a child to use his or her talent as an adult. Also how important practice and everyday dedication to one's art is. This book has many vignettes. They are great stories, perhaps not directly to the point of how to become an artist and writer, but worth sharing. Some of them are to do with his growing up in a Jewish family that got together for Friday nights and holidays.

I wish that he had given some dates. It's only because my husband knows baseball that I was able to figure out that Mr. Waldman must have grown up in the 1950s. (Yes?) My husband also knew about the Mother Herd, which Waldman saw as a child at the Bronx Zoo with his grandfather; when Neil Waldman later found out, he was so inspired he wrote a book about it.

I also wish he had explained more about the other artists whose works he includes in this book. When I entered Common Knowledge here, I realized that he names them in his dedication, but reading the names before the rest of the book, I had no idea who there were as I was introduced to their work. I did like the layout of the book. Although using italics for his thoughts and words was surprising. ( )

I'm not even sure how I ended up with this title and what about it initially attracted me. It's a short, pseudo-memoir which is written very much like a novel for kids. It was so casual and so much detail was included in conversations and environment development, there were several times I forgot it was a biography - but then there was what could only be described as "a commercial" embedded in the middle of a section to highlight the accomplishments of the artist later in life.

I had not heard of the artist (Neil Waldman) nor was I familiar with any of the works for which he won his awards, but it was a simple story covering his difficult home life, his jewish heritage and his growth to becoming an accomplished artist. Written for a youth audience, I had no problem going through it for my own enjoyment. Not great, but I've read worse ( )