KATIE AND THE MONA LISA

Katie’s back (Katie Meets the Impressionists, p. 148) this time to trip through the world of Renaissance paintings with her new friend, Mona Lisa. When Katie appears inside her painting, Mona Lisa admits she’s lonely and starts to cry. Plucky Katie decides to give her a walking tour through the other paintings to cheer her friend up. The chivalrous hero of St. George and the Dragon is charmed by Mona Lisa’s beauty, but a visit to Botticelli’s Primavera angers the dancing muses, who chase the two new friends away. Eventually, the main character in The Lion of St. Mark and St. George’s dragon lock claws in a fight on the museum floor, which involves the muses, St. George, an angel with a lute, and museum patrons. The fight tickles Mona Lisa’s funny bone. Mayhew’s drawings artfully combine classical reproductions with lively illustrations, in this more sobering trek through art than found in Bjorn Sortland’s Anna’s Art Adventure (p. 889) (Picture book. 4-7)