An illuminating look at an influential artistic period, which may well inspire readers to pick up their own pen or...
In Lee’s novel, set in Victorian London and based on real events, a group of rebellious young artists battles the repercussions of their refusal to conform.
It’s 1848, and William Holman Hunt has just been accepted to study at the prestigious London Academy of Art. However, he resents the overly prettified, sentimental landscapes that litter the annual Academy Exhibition. He wants to create art that imitates life—all the color, confusion and even ugliness. A few like-minded young men, most notably John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, share Hunt’s views, and together they form a group called the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Like any revolutionary group, the PRB has plenty of naysayers, including the vehemently jealous traditionalist Frank Stone and his more famous compatriot Charles Dickens; Lee litters her novel with mentions of these and other notable artistic celebrities of the period, such as Keats, Tennyson and Wilkie Collins. Her novel—a quick read despite the hefty page count—features many detailed descriptions of the Brotherhood’s artwork, and it could have benefited from an illustrated appendix with paintings shown rather than merely described. Nonetheless, Lee has a talent for making the minutest artistic details sound interesting. She also has a historian’s accurate eye for the period, but she doesn’t allow those details to bog down the story and turn it into a dry, purely factual text. The artists of the Brotherhood are portrayed with distinct personalities, styles and beliefs, which, in the novel’s central dramatic vein, affects their struggle to remain united in the face of adversity. Anyone interested in the culture of Victorian London will find plenty to celebrate.
An illuminating look at an influential artistic period, which may well inspire readers to pick up their own pen or paintbrush.Pub Date: June 27, 2012
ISBN: 978-0985027001
Page Count: 520
Publisher: April Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 5, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A simple ABC book whose vibrant photographs will grab kids’ attention.
Debut authors Pi and Pi offer a debut picture-book alphabet of occupations, featuring photos of children playing dress-up.
Each of the 26 pages of this book features a photo, with illustrated details, of a child in the midst of a game of dress-up and imagination. The first shows a cheerful girl, costumed as a doctor, imagining, “What can I be today?” For “A,” a young artist paints on an easel; then, in a transition sentence, she decides to do ballet. The next page shows a ballerina who, when she gets hungry, visits a chef—and so on. Most transitions make sense, and the photos of children with occupation props, set against mostly white backgrounds, offer plenty of smiles. The simple sentences make this book easy to read aloud to its early childhood target audience. However, a few job titles may be a stretch for them to understand, such as “geologist,” “horticulturalist,” and “optician.” The jobs are varied and include artistic positions (illustrator, knitter, musician), service professions (firefighter, judge, librarian, soldier), and science jobs (engineer, X-ray technician). Surprisingly, the only sports-related position is an umpire, but a leading question at the end, about other jobs that one may discover, leaves room for young listeners to create their own.
A simple ABC book whose vibrant photographs will grab kids’ attention.Pub Date: Dec. 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4808-5453-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Archway Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Poems and images that ask readers to appreciate a searching body for its beauty and grace.
Diehl’s debut poetry collection showcases the arduous search for human connection and self-understanding.
In free verse poems that combine strong metaphors with prosaic passages, the poet wanders along a lifelong path of self-knowledge. She first describes it as a “pilgrimage…to accept what’s been deemed unworthy inside us,” and the trail leads to important insights. In a plainly stated yet necessary reminder, the author asserts that being human, despite the loneliness one may encounter, “is not a solitary pursuit.” Above all else, the book voices a desire for transparency in the self and in others. In “Clear Stream,” moving water illuminates objects within it, even as mystery waits at the bottom, and the water’s clarity corresponds to the speaker’s offering of his- or herself to view: “Here I am. // Come see me if you want.” Sometimes the tumble of words in these short stanzas suggests a pouring forth of injury: “It’s the show-stopping blow of loss upending a heart pain over pain till capacity for love regulates its beating.” Readers will understand a back story involving love and loss, difficulty in communication, sadness, and acceptance of children growing up. The poems gain strength from well-chosen accompanying images, including sketches and paintings by Dimenichi and colorful works by Jamaican-born painter Powell that enrich the verbal landscape. Several full-page images by each artist appear, suggesting a thematic connection or amplifying an emotion in a given poem. A richly textured, grand illustration of a tree by Dimenichi, for example, appears alongside a poem that celebrates the inspiration of such towering entities. A poem concerned with self-reflection joins a Powell painting of floating, twinned female forms. The figures seem to both depict and satisfy the speaker’s need to be seen, with their emphasis on mirror images, body doubles, and echoes of shapes. Even the windshield of a car can be a “two way mirror” behind which the driver is “invisible to life outside.” An explicitly female body is glimpsed in the sketches, and the warm, dreamlike compositions give it substance.
Poems and images that ask readers to appreciate a searching body for its beauty and grace.Pub Date: July 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-304-13091-4
Page Count: 58
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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