Comedic details, invented dialogue, and cartoonish portrayals tilt this account to the blithely lighthearted.
Following on Cézanne’s Parrot (2020), Guglielmo and Helquist reunite for a buoyant, kid-friendly distillation of Salvador Dalí’s life and art.
Focusing on Dalí’s boyhood impulses—exploration, imagination, doodling at school—the narrative quickly establishes the iconoclastic artist as an early irritant to his father, peers, and teacher. The reiterated complaint “Why can’t you…?” is rejoined with variations on the titular refrain: “But Salvador was just being himself.” A fortuitous convalescence with a painter’s family sparked Dalí’s avid artistic path. He entered a Madrid art academy, where boredom with technical mastery provoked rebellion and expulsion. A move to Paris engendered artistic experimentation, and Dalí found his compatriots, the early surrealists. Helquist here inserts painted thumbnails of works by famous peers: Magritte, Arp, Ernst, Ray, and Miró. His double-page spreads utilize clouds as conduits for playful imagery that aligns with Dalí’s intensely original imagination. The narrative follows Dalí and Gala, his lover and muse, back to Spain, then forth to the U.S., where the success of the small painting The Persistence of Memory (seen viewed by a diverse group of museumgoers) launched decades of fame for the prolific White artist. Guglielmo details some of Dalí’s increasingly sensational capers, which led the European surrealists finally to expel him. The result is to reduce Dalí’s work in design, collaboration, and what would today be seen as brand-building to antics that displeased critics but earned Dalí fans. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11-by-18-inch double-page spreads viewed at 75% of actual size.)
Comedic details, invented dialogue, and cartoonish portrayals tilt this account to the blithely lighthearted. (author’s note, selected bibliography, source notes, featured works of art) (Picture book/biography. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-984816-58-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
A striking visual representation of how the label “bad reader” can feel.
A slow reader gains confidence.
Strongly influenced by Talbott’s own childhood reading journey, a young tot with a mop of brown hair and pale skin loves art, but reading doesn’t come as naturally. Crayons and colored pencils create imaginative worlds, but the words on a page crowd together, forming an impenetrable wall, with the youngster barely able to peer over. The rest of the class seemingly soars ahead, turning page after page, but the books (in the protagonist’s mind) give chase, flying menacingly like a scene from Hitchcock: “And they were coming for me! / So many words! So many pages!” Talbott expertly captures the claustrophobic crush of unknown vocabulary, first as a downpour of squiggles from the sky, then as a gnarled, dark forest with words lining the branches. But reading slowly doesn’t mean not reading at all. The youngster learns to search for familiar words, using them as steppingstones. And there are advantages: “Slow readers savor the story!” There is even a “Slow Readers Hall of Fame” included, featuring Albert Einstein, Sojourner Truth, and many others. Talbott excels at evincing concepts visually, and this talent is in evidence here as his protagonist first struggles then gains mastery, surfing confidently down a wave of words. Patience and curiosity (along with some fierce determination) can unlock incredible stories. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A striking visual representation of how the label “bad reader” can feel. (author's note) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-399-54871-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
A picture book more than worthy of sharing the shelf with Alan Schroeder and Jerry Pinkney’s Minty (1996) and Carole Boston...
A memorable, lyrical reverse-chronological walk through the life of an American icon.
In free verse, Cline-Ransome narrates the life of Harriet Tubman, starting and ending with a train ride Tubman takes as an old woman. “But before wrinkles formed / and her eyes failed,” Tubman could walk tirelessly under a starlit sky. Cline-Ransome then describes the array of roles Tubman played throughout her life, including suffragist, abolitionist, Union spy, and conductor on the Underground Railroad. By framing the story around a literal train ride, the Ransomes juxtapose the privilege of traveling by rail against Harriet’s earlier modes of travel, when she repeatedly ran for her life. Racism still abounds, however, for she rides in a segregated train. While the text introduces readers to the details of Tubman’s life, Ransome’s use of watercolor—such a striking departure from his oil illustrations in many of his other picture books—reveals Tubman’s humanity, determination, drive, and hope. Ransome’s lavishly detailed and expansive double-page spreads situate young readers in each time and place as the text takes them further into the past.
A picture book more than worthy of sharing the shelf with Alan Schroeder and Jerry Pinkney’s Minty (1996) and Carole Boston Weatherford and Kadir Nelson’s Moses (2006). (Picture book/biography. 5-8)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2047-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
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