Excellent for art lovers and for potential art lovers; both will be hooked by the search.
Art appreciation, taught with a puzzle element.
With an 11-by-15–inch trim size, this impressive volume opens to spreads almost 2 feet across, each featuring one piece of fine art. Outside every artwork’s border float 10 to 12 small circles, each circle reproducing a detail from that spread’s spotlighted piece. The charge to readers: locate each detail’s location in the full piece. Although this structurally recalls Martin Handford’s Where’s Waldo, the chance to pore over high-quality reproductions of complex and varied masterpieces strongly elevates this search in both appeal and sophistication. Short essays at the end discuss the works’ genres, contexts, and media. There’s also an answer key. Of the 23 pieces, Jackson Pollock’s Convergence makes the hardest puzzle because of its complete abstraction and close, frenetic squiggles of paint; the others either are representational (the Aztec manuscript Codex Borbonicus; Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Bal du moulin de la Galette) or feature distinct, identifiable shapes (Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, black-and-white and stunning in this big, glossy format). Each isolated detail appears slightly larger than in the main piece, enhancing understanding; for example, Jan Van Eyck’s Madonna with Canon van der Paele magnifies an eye, emphasizing that facial expression’s complexity.
Excellent for art lovers and for potential art lovers; both will be hooked by the search. (answer key, locations of art) (Nonfiction. 6-13)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-61689-421-4
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
A lovely encouragement to young writers to persist.
This follow-up to How To Read a Story (2005) shows a child going through the steps of creating a story, from choosing an idea through sharing with friends.
A young black child lies in a grassy field writing in a journal, working on “Step 1 / Search for an Idea— / a shiny one.” During a walk to the library, various ideas float in colorful thought bubbles, with exclamation points: “playing soccer! / dogs!” Inside the library, less-distinct ideas, expressed as shapes and pictures, with question marks, float about as the writer collects ideas to choose from. The young writer must then choose a setting, a main character, and a problem for that protagonist. Plotting, writing with detail, and revising are described in child-friendly terms and shown visually, in the form of lists and notes on faux pieces of paper. Finally, the writer sits in the same field, in a new season, sharing the story with friends. The illustrations feature the child’s writing and drawing as well as images of imagined events from the book in progress bursting off the page. The child’s main character is an adventurous mermaid who looks just like the child, complete with afro-puff pigtails, representing an affirming message about writing oneself into the world. The child’s family, depicted as black, moves in the background of the setting, which is also populated by a multiracial cast.
A lovely encouragement to young writers to persist. (Informational picture book. 6-10)Pub Date: July 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4521-5666-8
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Energetic enough to carry younger rocketeers off the launch pad if not into a very high orbit.
The bubble-helmeted feline explains what rockets do and the role they have played in sending people (and animals) into space.
Addressing a somewhat younger audience than in previous outings (Professor Astro Cat’s Frontiers of Space, 2013, etc.), Astro Cat dispenses with all but a light shower of “factoroids” to describe how rockets work. A highly selective “History of Space Travel” follows—beginning with a crew of fruit flies sent aloft in 1947, later the dog Laika (her dismal fate left unmentioned), and the human Yuri Gagarin. Then it’s on to Apollo 11 in 1969; the space shuttles Discovery, Columbia, and Challenger (the fates of the latter two likewise elided); the promise of NASA’s next-gen Orion and the Space Launch System; and finally vague closing references to other rockets in the works for local tourism and, eventually, interstellar travel. In the illustrations the spacesuited professor, joined by a mouse and cat in similar dress, do little except float in space and point at things. Still, the art has a stylish retro look, and portraits of Sally Ride and Guion Bluford diversify an otherwise all-white, all-male astronaut corps posing heroically or riding blocky, geometric spacecraft across starry reaches.
Energetic enough to carry younger rocketeers off the launch pad if not into a very high orbit. (glossary) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-911171-55-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flying Eye Books
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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