An essential guide to the legacy of a well- and deservedly loved artist.
An illuminating, lavishly illustrated tribute to the works and talents of an iconic writer and illustrator, revised and updated in the wake of his death in March 2020.
Elleman adds books and illustrations published after her 1999 critical work, Tomie dePaola: His Art and His Stories, and reworks some of the original edition’s topical chapters, further buffing her already-lapidary analyses of how and why dePaola’s art works so well with the plethora of texts he illustrated and/or wrote over his long career. Playing to her strengths as an unexcelled observer and describer of picture-book art, she captures both visual and emotional ebbs and flows in dozens of works while raising critical points, such as complaints that too many of his pictures look alike, only so she can demolish them with barrages of counterexamples and well-chosen images of pages, page turns, and full spreads. Though dePaola is perhaps best known for drawing on his own background for authentic evocations of Italian and Italian American culture, Elleman commends his portrayals of diverse racial and ethnic characters in such works as his volume of Mother Goose rhymes. Sample pages of a picture book from first draft to finished layout present a revealing case study in his process, and an extended closing album of his “non-book” paintings offers convincing evidence of both his versatility and a distinctive style that shines through no matter the medium or subject. Specific biographical details are limited, but as Trina Schart Hyman writes in her introductory tribute (present in both this and the 1999 work), “the artist always draws or paints him- or herself, no matter what the subject and no matter what or how the approach.” Even devoted fans will come away knowing and liking dePaola more.
An essential guide to the legacy of a well- and deservedly loved artist. (endnotes, lists of publications and of awards, notes on art media, index) (Nonfiction. 12-adult)Pub Date: March 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5344-1226-2
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
A larger-than-life subject is neatly captured in text and images.
The life journey of the first African American to serve on the United States Supreme Court and the incidents that formed him.
Thurgood Marshall grew up in segregated Baltimore, Maryland, with a family that encouraged him to stand for justice. Despite attending poor schools, he found a way to succeed. His father instilled in him a love of the law and encouraged him to argue like a lawyer during dinner conversations. His success in college meant he could go to law school, but the University of Maryland did not accept African American students. Instead, Marshall went to historically black Howard University, where he was mentored by civil rights lawyer Charles Houston. Marshall’s first major legal case was against the law school that denied him a place, and his success brought him to the attention of the NAACP and ultimately led to his work on the groundbreaking Brown v. Board of Education, which itself led to his appointment to the Supreme Court. This lively narrative serves as an introduction to the life of one of the country’s important civil rights figures. Important facts in Marshall’s life are effectively highlighted in an almost staccato fashion. The bold watercolor-and-collage illustrations, beginning with an enticing cover, capture and enhance the strong tone set by the words.
A larger-than-life subject is neatly captured in text and images. (author’s note, photos) (Picture book/biography. 5-9)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6533-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
An engrossing, rigorously documented study of a 20th-century literary trailblazer.
A penetrating exploration of the life and work of the acclaimed novelist, memoirist, and pioneering figure in gay culture.
While Christopher Isherwood (1904-1986) may be best known for Goodbye to Berlin, which drew on his experiences in Weimar-era Berlin and inspired the musical Cabaret, this new biography by Bucknell, director of the Christopher Isherwood Foundation, astutely highlights the considerable merits of his other novels and candid autobiographical works. The author renders a sweeping portrait of Isherwood's remarkable life journey, during which he forged indelible connections with many of the era's preeminent literary and artistic figures. Early on, Isherwood moved within an influential circle of writers that included W.H. Auden, E.M. Forster, and Steven Spender. In 1939, he moved to Hollywood and pursued screenwriting, while also initiating a spiritual conversion to Vedanta under the guidance of Indian monk Swami Prabhavananda. Over the ensuing years, his vast circle expanded, bringing in Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, and David Hockney, among others. Bucknell dedicates perhaps too many pages to Isherwood's early years, privileged upbringing, Cambridge education, and elements of his complex family dynamics (including his father's death in World War II and his suffocating relationship with his mother), but this detailed exploration lays the foundation for her explorations of her subject’s later writing and the complexities that shaped his intimate relationships, particularly his romances with various men at different stages of his life, most enduringly with artist Don Bachardy. Throughout, Bucknell urgently draws attention to Isherwood’s courageous life as an openly gay man and his vital role in advancing gay liberation through his writing: "He saw from his career's outset that he must make homosexuality attractive to mainstream audiences if he was to change their view of it, and he worked to do this in all his writing in different ways.”
An engrossing, rigorously documented study of a 20th-century literary trailblazer.Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9780374119362
Page Count: 848
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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