Boy Who Loved to Draw: Benjamin West

By Barbara Brenner and Olivier Dunrea

When Benjamin West was seven years old, the only thing in the world he wanted to do was draw pictures. For a time, that got him into a peck of trouble. Papa wasn't pleased when Benjamin "borrowed" his best quill pen. Mama wasn't happy that Benjamin would rather sketch the cows than milk them. And Grimalkin, the family cat, was not keen on being the source for paintbrush hairs! Truth was, there was nothing Benjamin cared more about than art, and that led him to some surprising adventures. Here, in lively easy-to-read words and vivid pictures, is the engaging true story of Benjamin West, the farmboy from colonial Pennsylvania who grew up to become the first world-famous American artist and a friend to Benjamin Franklin and the king of England.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jun 23, 2003
• ISBN: 9780547767406

Barbara Brenner

Barbara Brenner, the author of both fiction and nature books for children, is an active member of Bank Street College of Education. Ms. Brenner and her husband, the artist Fred Brenner, live in Hawley, Pennsylvania.

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Text copyright © 1999 by Barbara Brenner

Illustrations copyright © 1999 by Olivier Dunrea

All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

www.hmhco.com

The illustrations in this book are gouache on paper.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Brenner, Barbara.

The boy who loved to draw: Benjamin West / Barbara Brenner ; illustration by Olivier Dunrea.

p. cm.

Summary: Recounts the life story of the Pennsylvania artist who began drawing as a boy and eventually became well known on both sides of the Atlantic.

1. West, Benjamin, 1738–1820—Juvenile literature. 2. Painters—United States—Biography—Juvenile literature.

[1. West, Benjamin, 1738–1820. 2. Artists.] I. Dunrea, Olivier, ill.

II. Title.

ND237.W45B74 1999

759.13—dc21 [B] 97-5183 CIP AC

ISBN 978-0-618-31089-0

eISBN 978-0-547-56224-7

v2.0514

For my husband, Fred,

who was a boy who loved to draw

—B.B.

For