How to Draw Animals (Dover How to Draw)

This book is easy to use. There are helpful tips at the front of the book. It is simple to follow the step by step instructions. The selection of animals in this book are great. Not only did my daughter use it, but her Mom gave it a try as well. Great book.

It was very fast delivery , one day :-) I ordered it for my daughter for Christmas . She did not get it yet but I am sure she will be happy with it . She likes to draw a picture , especially animals . Very nice and cute pictures that book has .

I bought this as a gift for the daughter (7 years old I believe) of a friend of mine. I am very impressed by the results. She snapped it up and immediately began using it. You could see her drawing improve almost immediately, and she came up with some very impressive (and hilarious) drawings.

I can't really give the book any higher praise than that.

I was trying to find Spiro-graph for my niece when I read the reviews of the new version. So I realized what my niece might really enjoy is something to help her learn to draw free-hand. She loves them! She's mastering the images too quickly!

The price is unbeatable. I couldn't resist ordering this along with two other books in the How to Draw series. This is a Christmas present. My son and I are learning how to draw together and this series makes it so easy. Looking forward to bonding with my boys! We homeschool and have been drawing every day, creating nice pieces of art work.

This book was a gift for my wife, who doodles cartoon animals and was interested in learning how to improve her technique. She loves it, as it does exactly what the title says; It shows you how to draw cartoon animals in a simple, step-by-step manner.

I am super happy with the purchase of this book. My son is constantly wanting me to draw animals and I was always googling how to do it... so this saves me a lot of time! Its basic animal drawings that even I can manage to draw lol!

I got this drawing book for my 9yr old daughter who is great at drawing. She loves art and wants to be an artist when she grows up. This book is a little too difficult for her to do alone because she's got a heavy hand and its hard for her to erase after she's drawn the initial circles. I've been practicing with her a lot, so it helps to have someone assist. The animals do come out great though. I really enjoy it and it is a nice bonding time for us as a family.

I'm an Ed Emberly fan, and as my children (and admittedly myself) have drawn so much out of his books, we've started to branch out to more sophisticated drawings. With the exception of Ed's, most "how-to" books pretty much "teach" in the same way: They give you a number of guides which are supposed to take you from simple shapes to the picture you're trying to arrive at.
It's apparent to me now, having revisited Emberly's work as an adult, and going back to books like this, which were tremendously frustrating to me as a child, that the key difference between a book like "How To Draw Animals" and "Ed Emberly's Drawing Book of Animals" is =not= the complexity of the final picture.
The key difference is the =gradient= between the guides.
In an Emberly book, each guide adds one or two very simple shapes to add--and tells you which shapes to add and often where (though it's usually obvious) and maybe even some explanatory text, etc., etc., whereas a book like this often gives you half-a-dozen shapes, and requires you to tweak the shapes you drew previously, all without a word of instruction or a different color or kind of line showing where the changes are.
Of course, these things are obvious to someone who already =can= draw, but very frustrating for those who can't.
Now, in my experience, most drawing books are like this, and you can't realistically buy them and be shocked when they all more-or-less take this approach, so I didn't really mark Ms. Soloff-Levy's book down for it.
Parents and teachers should pay close attention when buying these books for children. They all have different skill levels and the difference between ending up with a kid who gets frustrated and wants to throw the sketchbook away and ending up with one who enjoys drawing is, in a large part, going to depend on the adult's understanding of what skills a particular book requires.
For what it's worth, I'll continue to post my experiences here.
From a skill standpoint, I'd put this book after Ed Emberly's Big Red Drawing book. The shapes used are subtler than straight geometrics, but there are often only a few elements to a picture. And, thankfully, there are more than just three guides. (Some drawing books give you just three--or even two!--guides to go from nothing to a finished picture.)
I'd give it four stars but in some of the drawings, the guides don't match! I don't mean that a shape has to be tweaked or subtly altered, but simply that a leg in one guide is in a different position than the same leg in the next! Other than that, this book is recommended.

My grand daughter wanted me to draw a zebra so I purchased this in hopes that it had a zebra and it does. Zebra's and horses are not the same!!! It also has a horse. It is simple and basic shapes that I think most can draw. It also helps beginners see the basic shapes put together which is what realistic drawing is all about.

GREAT DRAWING BOOK TO HELP YOUNG KIDS LEARN HOW TO DRAW. THEY DO HAVE ONLY ONE PAGE TO PRACTICE DRAWING ON. IF I WERE YOU---I'D PURCHASE A SKETCH PAD TO GO ALONG WITH THIS BOOK SO THEY CAN PERFECT DRAWING THE PICTURES.

This is a very cute book of drawing instructions geared to children. I was completely disappointed that the packaging was a thin envelope which was stuffed into my mailbox and the book arrived as a crinkled mess, too bad, as it was a part of a gift to a young child. Barbara Soloff Levy drawing books are thoughtfully created such that even adults can benefit from the instructions!