by Barbara Herkert ; illustrated by Gabi Swiatkowska ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 27, 2015
Though the text works hard to convey it, getting an aesthetic sense of Cassatt’s famous body of work will require another...
Starting in childhood, impressionist artist Mary Cassatt carves her own path.
Mary grows up “tall and temperamental,” absolutely set on being an artist despite the 1860s social mores dictating that “proper girls weren’t artists. They had polite hobbies—flower arranging, needlepoint.” She attends art school and goes to Paris, sitting in the Louvre to copy the old masters. Connecting with Edgar Degas gives her a community that supports her independent streak: “We paint as we please. We break the judges’ rules.” Herkert’s bold phrasing—“Mary swept jewel tones across her canvas”—implies artistic zest. However, despite varied media (gouache, watercolor, acrylic, enamel, and tempera), Swiatkowska’s illustrations don’t match the text’s descriptions. A spread of “canary yellow, radiant pink, vibrant blue” shows no yellow at all (tan instead) and pleasant but low-intensity blue and pink. “Brilliant tones” and “lightning bolts of white” are narrated but not shown. Skin tones and backgrounds lean toward gray. Readers sophisticated enough to appreciate sentences like “she rendered cropped angles” will notice how much more is told than shown, including the fact that Cassatt is portrayed actually painting only once. Regrettably, Asian art is labeled “exotic.”
Though the text works hard to convey it, getting an aesthetic sense of Cassatt’s famous body of work will require another source. (Picture book/biography. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62779-016-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015
Share your opinion of this book
More by Barbara Herkert
BOOK REVIEW
by Barbara Herkert ; illustrated by Daniel Long
BOOK REVIEW
by Barbara Herkert ; illustrated by Lauren Castillo
BOOK REVIEW
by Barbara Herkert ; illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton
by Jennifer Dussling ; illustrated by Chin Ko ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 20, 2017
A succinct, edifying read, but don’t buy it for the pictures.
Abraham Lincoln’s ascent to the presidency is recounted in a fluid, easy-to-read biography for early readers.
Simple, direct sentences stress Lincoln’s humble upbringing, his honesty, and his devotion to acting with moral conviction. “Lincoln didn’t seem like a man who would be president one day. But he studied hard and became a lawyer. He cared about people and about justice.” Slavery and Lincoln’s signature achievement of emancipation are explained in broad yet defined, understandable analogies. “At that time, in the South, the law let white people own black people, just as they owned a house or a horse.” Readers are clearly given the president’s perspective through some documented memorable quotes from his own letters. “Lincoln did not like slavery. ‘If slavery is not wrong,’ he wrote to a friend ‘nothing is wrong.’ ” (The text does not clarify that this letter was written in 1865 and not before he ascended to the presidency, as implied by the book.) As the war goes on and Lincoln makes his decision to free the slaves in the “Southern states”—“a bold move”—Lincoln’s own words describe his thinking: “ ‘If my name ever goes into history,’ Lincoln said, ‘it will be for this act.’ ” A very basic timeline, which mentions the assassination unaddressed in the text, is followed by backmatter providing photographs, slightly more detailed historical information, and legacy. It’s a pity that the text is accompanied by unremarkable, rudimentary opaque paintings.
A succinct, edifying read, but don’t buy it for the pictures. (Informational early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: June 20, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-243256-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
Share your opinion of this book
by Lisbeth Kaiser ; illustrated by Leire Salaberria translated by Raquel Pitt ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2016
Stirring encouragement for all “little people” with “big dreams.” (Picture book/biography. 5-7)
“There’s nothing I can’t be,” young Maya thinks, and then shows, in this profile for newly independent readers, imported from Spain.
The inspirational message is conveyed through a fine skein of biographical details. It begins with her birth in St. Louis and the prejudice she experienced growing up in a small Arkansas town and closes with her reading of a poem “about her favorite thing: hope” at Bill Clinton’s presidential inauguration. In between, it mentions the (unspecified) “attack” by her mother’s boyfriend and subsequent elective muteness she experienced as a child, as well as some of the varied pursuits that preceded her eventual decision to become a writer. Kaiser goes on in a closing spread to recap Angelou’s life and career, with dates, beneath a quartet of portrait photos. Salaberria’s simple illustrations, filled with brown-skinned figures, are more idealized than photorealistic, but, though only in the cover image do they make direct contact with readers’, Angelou’s huge eyes are an effective focal point in each scene. The message is similar in the co-published Amelia Earhart, written by Ma Isabel Sánchez Vegara (and also translated by Pitt), but the pictures are more fanciful as illustrator Mariadiamantes endows the aviator with a mane of incandescent orange hair and sends her flying westward (in contradiction of the text and history) on her final around-the-world flight.
Stirring encouragement for all “little people” with “big dreams.” (Picture book/biography. 5-7)Pub Date: July 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-84780-889-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
Share your opinion of this book
More In The Series
by Maria Isabel Sánchez Vegara ; illustrated by Alona Millgram
by Maria Isabel Sánchez Vegara ; illustrated by Archita Khosla
by Maria Isabel Sánchez Vegara ; illustrated by Matt Hunt
More by Lisbeth Kaiser
BOOK REVIEW
by Lisbeth Kaiser ; illustrated by Stanley Chow
BOOK REVIEW
by Lisbeth Kaiser ; illustrated by Marta Antelo
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.