The Art Room

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University and an avid outdoor recreationist. She is the
author of several books, including The Mountain Is Moving: Japanese
Women’s Lives, Kurlek and Margaret Laurence: T

This beautiful book will appeal to children of all ages, especially to
those who love nature, art, and bold colors. Like the anonymous young
art students who found their way into a rambling stone building in
Victoria eager to take art classes with “‘Miss M,” Emily Carr,
readers today can enter the world created by Susan Vande Griek and
Pascal Milelli.

Carr taught painting and drawing to children to support herself in the
early 1900s. Her studio was a place “where pinks and purples spilled
from window boxes and leapt from walls, where squirrels scolded from
cages and red-crested bullfinches cheerfully whistled.”

In Milelli’s vividly colored illustrations, “our artist” dances
and sings through her studio, “ahing, naying or demonstrating” to
help her pupils “make paint fly and paper come alive.” Griek and
Milelli have certainly made a small portion of Carr’s life story come
alive. Both text and illustrations vibrate with energy and joy. The
young students having “giggled and gulped and gabbed with Miss Carr”
about people and animals and art, depart with fresh eyes. Highly
recommended.