It was great to read this book to learn about Hokusai and one of my favourite paintings. The illustrations were great at supporting the text. I learned a lot about Japanese art and history!

An innovative and beautiful way of teaching and learning about art! I love this series, and will definitely be looking to add some of these titles to my college's picture book collection.

This is a great series, and it does a wonderful job of introducing art and artists to kids. The writing is engaging, filled with interesting, age-appropriate information and wonderful illustration, Throughout each story, there are prompts related to the art and artist being covered, inviting the reader to try out different techniques and styles of art, and readers get to see what the artists themselves were inspired by. I would've loved this series as a child!
Hokusai is a favorite of mine, and I really enjoyed learning about his life and art. He was groundbreaking for his time, combining styles to make a style that was his own in a time when artists were expecting to follow and produce the style of one master. The story highlights his feeling that he was always learning, always improving, and hadn't reached his potential yet, a good message to young artists, I think - it's always inspirational to find out even those we think of as masters feel they are still learning their craft.

#TheMetHokusai #NetGalley

*received for free from netgalley for honest review* i took a lot of art classes as a kid so im familiar with the artist but this was a really cool read none the less!

I LOVE Hokusai's work. So when I saw this on NetGalley, I had to request it. I'm glad that I had the opportunity to read it. The colors are lush, the artwork crisp and the samples of Hokusai's work breathtaking, as his work is.

His life story is rather simplified, but this is for children, so it is a good amount of information. There are also little thought pieces and suggested exercises for the reader to do, which makes it nicely interactive and takes the subject beyond the book and into practical work.

Good book on a great subject, nicely scaled for children. I would definitely recommend this for children who enjoy art. There are lots of blocks of text, so maybe Middle Grade on up, depending on the reading level of the child. As always, I recommend the adult giving this book to the child to review it to make sure it is a good fit for the child it is being given to. Not for any adult content, but for the more advanced reading it requires. I am always afraid if something is TOO hard, it will scare the child away. Challenging is good. Impossible is not.

4, I love Hokusai and I hope this book creates more Hokusai lovers, stars.

My thanks to NetGalley and DK Childrens for a copy of this book to read and review.

The Met Hokusai is one of a new series of illustrated biographies of famous artists for young readers. Released 30th Nov 2021 by Penguin Random House on their DK imprint, it's 56 pages and is available in hardcover and ebook formats.

This is a clearly told and beautifully illustrated biography of the famous 18th century Japanese artist. The text is full of age-appropriate details about the artist's life and works. One thing I really enjoyed about this book (and the others in the series) are the reader drawing prompts generously scattered throughout. Readers are invited to draw in the style of an artist they admire, draw street scenes and people in their neighborhood, draw scenes from different seasons and many more. The prompts are placed on pages with tie-in background scenes and relevant observations about the artist's life and development.

This would be a good choice for public or school library acquisition, for the home library, and for gift giving to a young reader, perhaps bundled with some drawing tools and supplies.

Five stars. Genuinely well written and illustrated.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

A great introduction to artists, this is a good series for older readers reminiscent of the Little People Big Dreams series. A great classroom or library resource

This was a beautiful and informational biography! I think kids will be drawn the lovely images and be inspired to create art just as Hokusai did.

This series of books for children is published in conjunction with New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Each entry is beautifully illustrated and gives a sense of the artist’s spirit and sensibility. This time the artist featured is a well-known Japanese one.

Even as an adult who has taken art history classes, I learned new things in reading this title. For example, the artist changed his name many times, lived to a rather old age and was interested not only in Japanese art.

Children will learn that Hokusai was adopted, that he studied with many artists and that he constantly wanted to improve. They will see that he was an artist who developed his own style during a time when there was much conformity in Japan.

The author invites children in. She offers them art projects that they might want to explore. As in the other volumes, there are some special sections at the end of the book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this enjoyable title. All opinions are my own.

A big thank-you to NetGalley, the author, and publisher for giving me a copy of this book for an unbiased review.

5/5 - Really liked it quite a bit.

This short but lovely book explores the life of Katsushika Hokusai, the artist most commonly known for his woodblock print of the The Great Wave off Kanagawa. The book aims to educate children about this artist and is full of beautiful illustrations as well as activities children might enjoy. However, it can easily be enjoyed by adults, as well. I was able to learn quite a bit from reading this book - from the fact that Hokusai had changed his name frequently to reflect what was happening in his life and which teachers he was being influenced by - to the story about him being struck by lightening! I also did not know that his daughters followed in his footsteps as artists, or that they were his assistants in creating art.

Overall, this was a delightful book and one that is as likely to interest adults as children.

📚Book Review📚

The Met Hokusai: He Saw the World in a Wave by Susie Hodge, illustrated by Kim Ekdahl ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This book absolutely enchanted me. Not only are the illustrations beautiful, but the book is amazingly informative. It tells the life story of Hokusai, which includes the development of his innovative style, as he studied under several different master artists. I love that there is genuinely a great deal of information about his life and artistic style, but it is also accessible to kids. The story is told on short snippets and accompanied buy by wonderfully descriptive illustrations in the Japanese style.

One of my favorite features of the book is its interactive nature. (Scroll pics to see examples.) Interwoven in the story are creative prompts and discussion starters based on that particular point in the story. I love this because it means that every time you read the book you can choose to focus on a different aspect of the story and use it as a jumping off point for a new creative activity. Also, at the back of the book there are directions for art projects based on Hokusai’s art work.

I am just so impressed with this book. The entire series is going on our family’s Christmas list. There are titles already published on Georgia O’Keefe and Vincent Van Gogh, with books on Hokusai and Faith Ringgold being PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 30th.

Thank you @netgalley and @dkbooksus for allowing me to read and review this book.

I have read 2 books in this series now, and I really enjoy them. These books are very informative about each artist's life. I am familiar with Hokusai's "Wave" painting (and I think most people would recognize the painting), but I didn't know anything about his life or other works, etc. I really enjoy these and I think they are great for kids, especially ones who are interested in art and art history. I think these would be good tools for elementary art teachers too.

Thank you to netgalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is another beautiful piece of nonfiction in this series. This book does a fantastic job of telling the story of the life of Hokusai, while also blending in his beautiful artwork and style on each page. The reader learns about him while also being exposed to his craft in the art. This is a book that school libraries should have in their collection for art teachers to use in lessons, and also for students to be exposed to this talented artist.

Another wonderful addition to this series! This is a comprehensive, accessible biography of Hokusai that includes lots of great information not only about the artist, but also about the world in which he lived and how art was understood in his time and place.

The book is full of amazing illustrations as well as prompts and suggested activities to help readers engage with the artist's style and understand his influences and development. This is a wonderful enrichment book for elementary and middle school and would be a great addition to school and classroom libraries. It would also be a great gift for manga fans to help expand their perspective on the origins of the style.

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review!