Horses

Eric Carle’s The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse (Philomel, 2013) includes a menagerie of marvelous colored animals, starting with a blue horse – and ending with Franz Marc’s famous painting, Blue Horse. For ages 2-4, but an inspirational art project jumpstart for all.

In Dr. Seuss’s The Horse Museum (Random House, 2019), kids learn about art in a tour of the horse-dominated Horse Museum, escorted by a knowledgeable horse. For ages 7-10.

See What pictures of horses can teach us about art. An interesting read with some help from Dr. Seuss.

Check out these 10 Equine Works of Art, all with helpful explanations.

Horses in Art History is an illustrated and annotated chronological overview, starting with 30,000-year-old paintings on the wall of the Chauvet Cave in France.

From the Smithsonian, see this wonderful assortment of Horses in Art, Science, History, and Culture.

From Art Projects for Kids, How to Draw a Horse is a step-by-step tutorial targeted at elementary-level students.

Try this Mythical Horses Inspired Art Lesson.

For poetry fans, Glenna Lang has illustrated a picture-book version of Robert Frost’s The Runaway (David R. Godine, 2005), the lovely poem about a little colt frightened by a snowfall. For ages 4-8.

Kenneth Koch in Rose, Where Did You Get That Red? (Vintage, 1990), an excellent collection of poetry projects for young writers, uses D.H. Lawrence’s compelling “The White Horse” as a jumping-off point for kid-created poems.

Edited by Carmela Ciuraru, Poems About Horses (Everyman’s Library, 2009) is a wide-ranging collection from the Aeneid to works by Robert Frost, Sylvia Plath, e.e. cummings, and Seamus Heaney. For teens and adults.