Hokusai: The Man Who Painted a Mountain

Title: Hokusai: The man who painted a mountain
Author/Illustrator: Debrah Kogan Ray
Publisher: Francis Foster Books, 2001
Grade level: 3-5
Genre: biography, picture book

Summary: This book is about the life of Hokusai (1760-1849) who became a famous painter in Japan. He was born into poverty with no idea who his father was. He taught himself to drawl from when he was very young. His mother would tell great stories of Mt.Fuji and promised they would one day make the trip to go to it. Hokusai mother died when he was one 6 years old. He then went to live with is uncle and helped them polish mirrors. His cousins would frequently make fun of him because he liked to drawl. At nights when he was sure he was alone he would take scrap paper and a piece of charcoal out of the stove and drawl. When he was old enough to go to school is was so excited to go and learn the Japanese characters because the symbols represented the word, like an art form. At 18 years old he was invited to become a pupil of a famous master, this is when he decided to become an artist. soon he started selling pictures to many rich people. This moved him to a high social rank. Japanese art had many rules and the masters got very angry and Hokusai for wanting to try all kinds of art forms, which was against the rules. He ended up going to Mt.Fuji, like his mother always wanted, and made his most famous art piece thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji which took him until he was 70 to complete.

Summary: I really enjoyed this book because it had outstanding bright pictures. On the bottom of every page was some sort of Japanese fact of Japanese character and it showed how to write it. Each word or fact would be related to the picture for example when Hokusai goes in the print shop it gives the japans character and name for printer (suri-shi), engraver (hori-shi) and artist (eshi).

Teaching Ideas: I would definitely use this book when discussing artist or even Japan. This is a great book to start showing Japanese characters and letting the student research the Japanese alphabet and write their name in Japanese. I remember doing this in school and using a calligraphy pen, I thought it was the neatest thing ever! Because it is indeed like an art form, it takes a lot of precision and very slow movements.

Bio Poem:

Katsushika.
Japanese artist, print maker, poor, never satisfied.
Mother, uncle.
Lover of mother, school, Mt. Fuji.
Who feels alone, passion, unsatisfied.
Who find happiness in print making.
Who needs art.
Who gives us the thirty six views of Mt. Fuji.
Who fears failure, incompletion, conformity.
Who would like to see his mother.
Who enjoys Mt. Fuji’s scenery.
Who likes to wear kimono when he travels.
Resident of Edo (now Tokyo), Japan.
Hokusai.