Art history with a little smile.
Following up If Picasso Painted a Snowman (2017), introductions to 19 more painters and their best-known styles.
In line with the previous gallery, the Newbolds dispatch a shiny-eyed hamster docent to squire young viewers past a set of full-page or larger scenes that imitate famous, or at least representative, paintings—with prehistoric elements, mostly dinosaurs, in each. The virtual museum tour begins with a Vitruvian Microraptor à la Leonardo and ends with a finely rendered Dino Lisa (a gowned maiasaura, according to the key at the end, but looking more than a little like Jar Jar Binks). In between he dishes up Dégas-style ballet dancers, plesiosaurs surfing a version of Hokusai’s Great Wave off Kanagawa, a can of Andy Warhol’s Dino Noodle Soup, Mark Rothko color fields declared to represent layers of prehistoric rocks, and more. Other artists include Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Qi Baishi, Loïs Mailou Jones, Harrison Begay, and Marguerite Zorach. The accompanying captions incline toward wordplay: “Cassius Coolidge crates a Cretaceous card game”; “BOOM! CRASH! CRUNK! Here comes a dinosaur by Edvard Munch!” Like the art, some dinos are actual ones, others fanciful. Leonardo is an outlier in this 18th- to 20th-century company (Begay alone lived into the 21st), but the lineup is at least as varied in school or style as the previous one and more diverse of sex, race, and national background than both its predecessor and many others of its ilk. Would-be Leonardos will find both an invitingly blank page to fill at the end and elementary prompts from the versatile illustrator.
Art history with a little smile. (thumbnail biographies) (Informational picture book. 5-9)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-88448-667-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Tilbury House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Self-serving to be sure but also chock-full of worthy values and sentiments.
The junior senator from California introduces family and friends as everyday superheroes.
The endpapers are covered with cascades of, mostly, early childhood snapshots (“This is me contemplating the future”—caregivers of toddlers will recognize that abstracted look). In between, Harris introduces heroes in her life who have shaped her character: her mom and dad, whose superpowers were, respectively, to make her feel special and brave; an older neighbor known for her kindness; grandparents in India and Jamaica who “[stood] up for what’s right” (albeit in unspecified ways); other relatives and a teacher who opened her awareness to a wider world; and finally iconic figures such as Thurgood Marshall and Constance Baker Motley who “protected people by using the power of words and ideas” and whose examples inspired her to become a lawyer. “Heroes are…YOU!” she concludes, closing with a bulleted Hero Code and a timeline of her legal and political career that ends with her 2017 swearing-in as senator. In group scenes, some of the figures in the bright, simplistic digital illustrations have Asian features, some are in wheelchairs, nearly all are people of color. Almost all are smiling or grinning. Roe provides everyone identified as a role model with a cape and poses the author, who is seen at different ages wearing an identifying heart pin or decoration, next to each.
Self-serving to be sure but also chock-full of worthy values and sentiments. (Picture book/memoir. 5-8)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-984837-49-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Jan. 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
Sage, soothing ideas for a busy, loud, sometimes-divisive world.
In an inviting picture book, Chelsea and Hillary Clinton share personal revelations on how gardening with a grandmother, a mother, and children shapes and nurtures a love and respect for nature, beauty, and a general philosophy for life.
Grandma Dorothy, the former senator, secretary of state, and presidential candidate’s mother, loved gardens, appreciating the multiple benefits they yielded for herself and her family. The Clinton women reminisce about their beloved forebear and all she taught them in a color-coded, alternating text, blue for Chelsea and green for Hillary. Via brief yet explicit remembrances, they share what they learned, observed, and most of all enjoyed in gardens with her. Each double-page spread culminates in a declarative statement set in italicized red text invoking Dorothy’s wise words. Gardens can be many things: places for celebration, discovery and learning, vehicles for teaching responsibility in creating beauty, home to wildlife large and small, a place to share stories and develop memories. Though operating from very personal experience rooted in class privilege, the mother-daughter duo mostly succeeds in imparting a universally significant message: Whether visiting a public garden or working in the backyard, generations can cultivate a lasting bond. Lemniscates uses an appropriately floral palette to evoke the gardens explored by these three white women. A Spanish edition, Los jardines de la abuela, publishes simultaneously; Teresa Mlawer’s translation is fluid and pleasing, in at least one case improving on the original.
Sage, soothing ideas for a busy, loud, sometimes-divisive world. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-11535-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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