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THE BOY WHO LOVED TO DRAW

Name: THE BOY WHO LOVED TO DRAW
Author: Barbara Brenner
ISBN: 0-395-85080-0

BENJAMIN WEST

by Barbara Brenner ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1999

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A folk-art quality infuses Dunrea’s clean-lined and pleasing gouache illustrations for this highly appealing biography from Brenner (The Earth is Painted Green, 1994, etc.) on the childhood of America’s first world-famous artist, Benjamin West. Later in life, West would enjoy the patronage of King George III and friendships with men such as Benjamin Franklin, but the boy growing up on a Pennsylvania farm in the tag end of a family of ten showed few signs of what he would become. Three chapters relate pivotal moments in West’s boyhood; in the first, Benjamin is given the duty of rocking the cradle and flapping the flies away from a baby, but is seized by an intense desire to draw the child instead, resulting in an astonishingly recognizable drawing. A nicely executed section, “And Then What Happened?” collapses the rest of an illustrious career into two spreads, one of which provides some of the artist’s paintings, including his first, Landscape with Cow. A concluding spread simply and briefly provides bibliographic data. The glimpses of the artist’s development in this handsome book provides may be apocryphal autobiography from West himself (Brenner bases her incidents on his account of his childhood), but the charm and innocence of his delinquencies will attract readers. (Picture book/biography. 5-8)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-395-85080-0

Page Count: 48

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1999

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE LITTLEST MATRYOSHKA

by Corinne Demas Bliss ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1999

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PLB 0-7868-2125-6 As is true for Pam Conrad’s Tub People, the events in a matryoshka doll’s life depend on external manipulations and circumstances; in this case, it makes the story of a perilous journey fall somewhat flat. A set of the nesting dolls is carved in a Russian village and then sent to a toy shop in America. The outer doll, Anna, has been instructed by the maker to watch over her siblings—“Keep your sisters safe inside you”—but there is nothing she can do when the smallest doll, Nina, is accidentally brushed off the counter and unceremoniously kicked out the door. It is an odyssey in which she has absolutely no active part, nor does she have reactions, for all she possesses is a blank matryoshka face. In the meantime, a young girl who has bought the rest of the set on sale charmingly tucks a little wad of cotton into the next-to-smallest doll so she won’t feel empty. Brown’s atmospheric but docile watercolors often view the matryoshka dolls from a distance, furthering the sense that the story is about events surrounding the dolls, instead of the dolls themselves. An author’s note on the history of matryoshkas is a welcome touch. (Picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-7868-0153-0

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Hyperion

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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IN THE PALM OF DARKNESS

by Mayra Montero & translated by Edith Grossman ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1997

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In The Palm Of Darkness ($21.00; May 1997; 192 pp.; 0-06-018703- 4): A Cuban writers's intensely imaginative portrait of the extremities of Haitian culture rings some fresh changes on the overfamiliar theme of intellectual arrogance humbled by its collision with ``elemental'' peasant wisdom. Montero subtly builds up a revealing contrast between Victor Griggs, a European herpetologist searching for the remaining specimens of an endangered species of amphibian, and his native guide Thierry Adrien's memories of his family's encounter with the island's ubiquitous spirits. This truly original novel is studded with surprises—not least of which is the concept of a species suddenly and entirely disappearing in a milieu where the living and the dead are known to mingle together more or less matter-of-factly. A refreshingly sophisticated treat. (Author tour)