From government-commissioned historical murals in Mexico to a community-organized clay tile mosaic in Boston, George Ancona takes the reader through an educational tour of murals in North America. Photographs of the murals are accompanied by descriptions of the mural's content, its location, and the context and/or process by which the mural came to be. Two common themes seem to dominate in the murals' content: 1) inspirational community leaders and/or historical figures and 2) depictions of the current population of the community. The prevalence of the first theme creates a useful intersection of arts and multiculturally relevant sociopolitical history, which has the potential to enrich middle school art curriculum.

This book and CD set is an amazing resource that combines cultural facts and folktales in a rich, engaging presentation. Each tale is preceded by an introduction that informs the reader of important historical and geographic information in which the tale is contextualized as well as presenting a thorough description of the drums and musical notation of the rhythms central to the tale. The CD that accompanies the book features the author narrating stories while she and other musicians play the rhythms on the drums in the tales. Most of the tales are found in the book, while others are "bonus" stories. The book includes several helpful appendixes, including explanatory notes about the shapes and construction of the different types of drums, a glossary, recommended resources and publications, suggestions for further reading, a bibliography, and a discography. Jaffe's knowledge of and passion for drumming are evident in the scope and depth of this book and CD.

In creating this book, Harriet Rohmer worked with visual artists of a variety of cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Each artist tells a story in a two-page spread, combining images and text in both narrative and expository forms. On a full page the artist illustrates an ancestor(s) he or she chose to honor; on the opposing page the artist's narration of the ancestor(s) is complemented by their photograph(s) (if available) and the artist's biographic information with his/her photograph. Identifying a recommended reading level is difficult because of this book's unique format. Although this book appears to be a picture book, readers at the younger end of the recommended age level will need help from a more experienced reader with the text.  The complexity of how the artists weave their art and text and the historical/social themes they allude to could be potentially relevant to middle school art students.  The illustrations could, of course, be appreciated by older students.  The book may be used in conjunction with a language arts or social studies unit on family.

Winner of the Corretta Scott King Award, I See Rhythm is another example of a well-executed approach to integrating imagery and text, and art and fact, to educate readers in a wholly engaging and empowering way. Like Honoring our Ancestors, the result is a unique book whose recommended age level may be more flexible depending on how the book is presented. The book uses a combination of timeline, imagery, and poetry to describe the last 500 years of African-American music history. For each time period the visual artist, Michele Wood, created a painting based on historical accounts, first-hand interviews, and the period music, and then the poet Toyomi Igus drew on Wood's painting as well as the music itself to create the accompanying poetic text. Beginning with "Origins" and ending with "Rap/Hip-Hop" each musical time period has a two-page spread that includes a brief factual summary of the musical time period, Wood's painting, Igus' poem, and a timeline of relevant historical and music-related events. The only thing this book lacks is an accompanying playlist (or better yet, a CD) of the works which the authors were listening to when they created this piece of educational art.