The holidays are coming, which traditionally include gift giving. Here are a few suggestions that would be welcomed by aspiring artists, writers or producers.

Help an artist get an early start by giving a child a drawing pad, a sketchbook and set of colored pencils. If you want to include a how to draw book, that would be great. Take a child to an art museum or to a zoo and take your sketchbooks with you.

Or treat yourself and a child to an incredible animated film — The Incredibles directed by Brad Bird is a great current release. Or give a DVD of an animated film that inspired you.

Books
Producing Animation by Catherine Winder and Zahra Dowlatabadi gives a fabulous producer’s overview of the animation process. But Producing Animation is not just for producers. Anyone who works in or aspires to work in animation would benefit from Producing Animation. The writers are both experienced production people and remind us how important attitude is and why it’s essential to establish a sense of mutual respect for everyone involved on a project. Producing Animation is a terrific guide for anyone who wants to get started in animation.

For the young artist, You Can Be a Woman Animator by Judith Love Cohen introduces six women who worked on Shark Tale and tells how they became animators. The best part of the book is the nine lesson plans for animation teachers. The book includes brief bios of the artists and writers who contributed to the book. It’s illustrated with photos of the artists at work and some artwork from Shark Tale. A brief questionnaire is included to help you determine if animation might be a career for you. The weakest section is “Nomenclature” where some computer animation terms are defined in fairly technical language for the targeted age group of this book.

How to Write For Animation by Jeffrey Scott is a wonderful sourcebook for anyone interested in the world of animation script writing. Scott details every step of writing for animation with sections on premises, outlines, treatments, description, dialogue and how to rewrite and polish scripts. Scott is a seasoned animation writing veteran with hundreds of writing credits and his advice including how to get an agent and how to pitch is invaluable.

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