Reading Benefits

Early engagement in reading stories and making connections helps develop literacy skills and a lifelong love of books. Minni × Beacon Hill Books & Cafe : Art Book Club gatherings will harness the innate curiosity of each little artist through sharing books and then creating artwork to develop even deeper and more personal connections. Learn more about the benefits of early literary development here.

Art Is Life: The Life of Artist Keith Haring

Writer Tami Lewis Brown and illustrator Keith Negley present a joyful picture book biography of modern art icon Keith Haring, celebrating the ways his life embodied the message: art is for everyone.

Art is life... and life is art.

Keith Haring believed that art should be enjoyed by everyone.

When Keith first moved to New York City, he rode the subway and noticed how the crowds were bored and brusque, and that the subways were decayed and dreary. He thought the people of New York needed liberating, illuminating, and radiating art. So he bought a stick of white chalk and started drawing...

The Iridescence of Birds: A Book about Henri Matisse

If you were a boy named Henri Matisse who lived in a dreary town in northern France, what would your life be like? Would it be full of color and art? Full of lines and dancing figures?

Find out in this beautiful, unusual picture book about one of the world's most famous and influential artists by acclaimed author and Newbery Medal-winning Patricia MacLachlan and innovative illustrator Hadley Hooper.

Ablaze with Color: A Story of Painter Alma Thomas

Celebrate the life-changing power of art in this inspiring and stunningly illustrated picture book biography of American artist Alma Thomas.

Meet an incredible woman who broke down barriers throughout her whole life and is now known as one of the most preeminent painters of the 20th century. Told from the point of view of young Alma Thomas, readers can follow along as she grows into her discovery of the life-changing power of art.

Beautiful Useful Things: What William Morris Made

A poetic story about the life and work of William Morris, maker of beautiful, useful things, sure to engage young dreamers and artists alike

William Morris is best known for his colorful wallpapers and textiles, inspired by the English forests and wild foliage where he grew up. But did you know this icon of the Arts and Crafts Movement was also a poet, a painter, a preservationist, an activist, an environmentalist, and a maker of many other beautiful useful things, like books?