Veteran picture-book biographer Wallner has turned her hand to the life and work of the great 20th-century American Primitive painter Anna Mary Robertson, a.k.a. Grandma Moses. Employing homespun illustrations and straightforward, homey, narrative style, Wallner takes youngsters back to the artist’s 19th-century New England roots. She limns the life spent on family farms and as a widow trying to make ends meet. Moses began embroidering “worsted pictures,” preferring images and scenes from her childhood in New York and New England. When rheumatism pained, she turned to paints. The thrifty artist used whatever paints and supports on hand—including glitter in her snow scenes. Wallner recreated Moses’s art here and appends one page of backmatter to round out the content. Youngsters who want to actually see Moses’s own paintings will prefer W. Nikola-Lisa’s The Year with Grandma Moses (2000). Nevertheless, young readers will find this a simple introduction to a genuine American character. A fresh-faced addition to young biography shelves and a sturdy choice for Women’s History Month. (Picture book/biography. 4-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-8234-1538-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2004
A beautifully designed book that will resonate with children and the adults who wisely share it with them.
An inspirational ode to the life of the great South African leader by an award-winning author and illustrator.
Mandela’s has been a monumental life, a fact made clear on the front cover, which features an imposing, full-page portrait. The title is on the rear cover. His family gave him the Xhosa name Rolihlahla, but his schoolteacher called him Nelson. Later, he was sent to study with village elders who told him stories about his beautiful and fertile land, which was conquered by European settlers with more powerful weapons. Then came apartheid, and his protests, rallies and legal work for the cause of racial equality led to nearly 30 years of imprisonment followed at last by freedom for Mandela and for all South Africans. “The ancestors, / The people, / The world, / Celebrated.” Nelson’s writing is spare, poetic, and grounded in empathy and admiration. His oil paintings on birch plywood are muscular and powerful. Dramatic moments are captured in shifting perspectives; a whites-only beach is seen through a wide-angle lens, while faces behind bars and faces beaming in final victory are masterfully portrayed in close-up.
A beautifully designed book that will resonate with children and the adults who wisely share it with them. (author’s note, bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 5-8)Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-178374-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2012
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses.
An NBA star pays tribute to the influence of his grandfather.
In the same vein as his Long Shot (2009), illustrated by Frank Morrison, this latest from Paul prioritizes values and character: “My granddad Papa Chilly had dreams that came true,” he writes, “so maybe if I listen and watch him, / mine will too.” So it is that the wide-eyed Black child in the simply drawn illustrations rises early to get to the playground hoops before anyone else, watches his elder working hard and respecting others, hears him cheering along with the rest of the family from the stands during games, and recalls in a prose afterword that his grandfather wasn’t one to lecture but taught by example. Paul mentions in both the text and the backmatter that Papa Chilly was the first African American to own a service station in North Carolina (his presumed dream) but not that he was killed in a robbery, which has the effect of keeping the overall tone positive and the instructional content one-dimensional. Figures in the pictures are mostly dark-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-81003-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
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