Mommy Brain

A few weeks ago, I received an e-mail from a representative at Birdcage Press, asking if I’d be willing to review one of their art games. I looked around their web site and got very excited. See, I’m passionate about art and art appreciation, but I haven’t been very successful in passing that enthusiasm on to my kids. I replied that I would love to try one of their games. A week or so later, I received a box in the mail that contained all six decks of their Close Up Card Game and their Art Shark Game.

The kids and I have been playing these games like crazy! And it isn’t a matter of having to coerce them - they love them as much as I do.

Art Shark is a game of collecting, displaying, and stealing art. Each player opens up a museum, and chooses their galleries: a century (17th through 20th), two nationalities (British, German, Italian, and French), and two specialties (history, landscapes, figures, and animals). You then collect art to display in your galleries. Other players try to steal your art and collect more than you. At the end of the game, the player whose collection is worth the most wins.

The amazing thing about this game is the cards. Each card has a reproduction of a work of art with a label telling the name of the work, the name of the artist, the century, and the nationality. So as you play, you begin to notice the difference between 17th century art and 20th century art, or German art as opposed to Italian art. It’s a ton of fun, and the kids are learning as we go.

There are five different Close Up card decks; each one is based on the art collection of a specific museum. The decks each have 48 cards. There are 24 pairs, and a pair consists of a reproduction of a full work of art with its name and the name of the artist, and a close-up of a detail of the painting without any other identification. These pairs can be used to play memory, go fish, and other games. My daughter and I have played go fish with all of the decks, and I love looking at the paintings and learning about her taste in art as we go. My 6yo likes playing independently, trying to match up each close-up detail with its painting as fast as he can. And if we are ever lucky enough to visit any of these museums, the decks will serve as our scavenger hunt lists.

I can’t recommend Birdcage Press and their products enough. Look around their site - the other products look just as amazing and unique as the two games I’ve described.