26th February

I haven't got a birthday to celebrate today, but yesterday was Renoir's birthday and I thought I would mention two books that are in my library that could be read to young children as part of a celebration of Auguste Renoir's life. He was born in 1841 and died on 3rd December 1919.

The first book For the Love of Auguste is by an English born Australian resident by the name of Brenda V. Northeast. She uses Bearre-Auguste Renoir ( a teddy bear) to tell Renoir's life-story. The illustrations are faithful to Renoir's original paintings even if there is a bear in many of them and these illustrations could be used next to prints of the originals as an observation activity. Brenda has a similar book For the Love of Vincent which does a similar thing with Van Gogh's story. And, now that I know her birthday is 3rd February (1948) these books could be used on the 3rd. I have added her to my calendar.

The second book is American...Renoir and the Boy With the Long Hair by Wendy Wax and Nancy Lane. It too is biographical, but it focusses on Jean, Renoir's second son whom he painted often because of his beautiful hair. The illustrations in this book are secondary to the text and do not emulate Renoir's impressionistic style in the way Northeast's do, but the story is interesting and longer than Northeast's. So read one for the illustrations and the other for the text!