Book Title: Radiant Child – The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (34 pages) Caldecott Prize Winning

Prize Winning Year: 2017

Characteristics of Play (Stuart Brown)

Characters Purposeless Voluntary Inherent Freedom Diminished Improvisational Continuation
P/S/B (Own choice?) attraction from time consciousness potential Desire
Human – M/F of self (‘flow’) (Spontaneous) Pleasure
Pm drawing +
“A little boy dreams about
being a famous artist”
Pm drawing +
“In his house you can tell a
serious ARTIST dwells”
“As he sits at a table with
pencils scattered everywhere,
Jean-Michel draws from
morning until night with a
serious face amid a storm of
papers. He refuses to sleep
until he has created a
masterpiece”
Pm drawing +
“At night, images enchant
Jean-Michel’s mind, and he
wakes from his dreams to add
one more line”
“His drawings are no neat or
clean, nor does he color inside
the lines. They are sloppy ugly,
and sometimes weird, but
somehow still BEAUTIFUL”
Pm (drawing)
“But most important, she lies
on the floor and draws with
Jean-Michel on his father’s old
work papers”
Pm (learns deep meaning of art
– art is play)
Deeper meaning of art:
“It is from her he learns that art
is not only in the poetry books
she reads to him or in the
theaters and museums they
visit. ART is the street games
of little children, in our style
and the words that we speak. It
is how the messy patchwork of
the city creates new meaning
for ordinary things”

Pm (observing art at museum)

While visiting the museum they
look at his favorite works of
art.
Pm (learning history of artists)
Reading the story behind each
artist, reading the story behind
each work – this is how Jean-
Michel learns what it means to
be a famous ARTIST.

Pm (painting)
“The energy and life of the city
can be felt in each of his
paintings”
Pm (learns deep meaning of art
– engaging with art helps
emotional regulation)
As time goes by, Jean-Michel
learns that art has HEALING
power.
Pm (reading book)
After a car accident, he is
scared and confused. Matilde
gave him a book to calm his
fears. It is filled with pictures
of bones, skulls, and other
body parts. Jean-Michel draws
from it until he knows it all by
heart. He is no longer afraid.
Pm (drawing)
“He tries drawing the terrible
out of his blues, but things are
not the same”
Pm (shows artwork to mother)
As Jean-Michel grows older,
he visits his mother when he
can, always bringing his
artwork to show, telling her
that one day it will be in a
museum, “WHEN I AM A
FAMOUS ARTIST”
Pm (drawing)
During the day, dressed in a
green jumpsuit splattered with
PAINT, Jean-Michel stays with
friends, sleeping on couches
and floors, leaving a barrage
of collages and poem-filled
papers everywhere he goes.
Pm (spray painting/graffiti)
“At night, Jean-Michel spray-
paints the walls downtown with
poems and drawings that catch
the eye of artists gallery-goers,
and passersby”
Pm (painting)
SAMO moves from street
corners to art gallery walls
with powerful color
composition and line, collaging
and painting on anything he
can find. His art is still not neat
or clean and definitely not
inside the lines, but somehow
still BEAUTIFUL

Pm (reading magazine//book
for ideas)
“Now in expensive suits
splattered with paint, he flips
through stacks of magazines
and open books, and paints into
the night and sometimes for
days at a time while sounds and
images jump into his head”