Revelatory to young audiences in more ways than one.
Brilliance unrecognized.
Bombshell actress Hedy Lamarr was worshipped for her beauty and elegance, but what the public didn’t know was that she was an inventor. Interspersing descriptions of her various inventions and Lamarr’s own words, the straightforward text and appealing, appropriately retro-feeling illustrations present a wide-eyed Lamarr as a multifaceted talent and portray both her life as a Hollywood star and her inquisitiveness and intellectual creativity, from her childhood in Austria through her acting heyday to her recognition as an inventor in her 80s. In this clear, appealing tale of an unsung heroine, Wallmark does not explicitly discuss the second-class status of female scientists but instead focuses on her subject’s personality and achievements. The process of invention and inspiration are explained in a succinct and inspiring way, as is Lamarr’s working partnership with composer and inventor George Antheil; their invention is relevant and used frequently in technology today. Fifty years later, Lamar is recognized, and her response forms the book’s conclusion: “It’s about time.” Wu’s illustrations focus on the book’s white principals but include secondary characters of color, neatly shifting mode to help illustrate the technological principles under discussion. The extensive backmatter includes a timeline, bibliography, further reading—and, emblematic of the subject, a description of Lamarr’s invention and a list of her films.
Revelatory to young audiences in more ways than one. (Picture book/biography. 5-10)Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4549-2691-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
An empowering introduction that demands parallel examination of Carrington’s own work.
Artist Leonora Carrington (1917-2011) bucks pressure and tradition to join the surrealist movement.
“Leonora’s parents wanted her to be like every other well-bred English girl. But she was not.” This white girl with Irish heritage doesn’t want to “become a lady.” As a child, she sketches make-believe planets; she’s expelled from boarding school after boarding school. In Italy, she sees Renaissance art in churches and galleries and forges ahead “to paint her own imagined worlds.” She joins the surrealists in London and then France, painting fantastical creatures and women who are not simply “pretty decorations.” When Nazi Germany invades France, Carrington escapes to Mexico (described, alas, as “exotic”), befriends artist Remedios Varo, and continues painting surrealist works about enchanted women, nature, mysticism, and the occult. Hall’s watercolor ink, gouache, and pencil-crayon illustrations feature mild surrealism, far less eerie than Carrington’s. Hall uses sinuous lines abundantly—doorways curve, tree trunks bend—and tints Carrington’s world with greens, golds, and oranges. A few full-bleed spreads are magnificent, including the flight from Nazi Europe, which combines a burning city and a winged creature-ship, and a depiction of Carrington’s late painting of a giantess, for which readers must turn the book sideways. A love affair with surrealist Max Ernst and an early marriage of convenience to escape Europe go unmentioned until the author’s note; Carrington’s mental illness isn’t mentioned anywhere.
An empowering introduction that demands parallel examination of Carrington’s own work. (illustrator’s note, bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 5-9)Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-244109-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
Buoyantly told, rich in insights into the creative process as well as the crafts of writing, illustrating, and storytelling.
How a masterpiece was cooked up, with Green Eggs and Ham for dessert.
Breaking occasionally into verse herself—“Dr. Seuss, we insist! / Won’t you please write a book that no kid can resist? / P.S. Use the words on this No-Nonsense List”—Sierra explains how the author of Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose and other favorites put aside his love of made-up words for a set, 236-item vocabulary, spun a “whiz-bang story” out of the elemental rhyme of “cat” with “hat,” and after work followed by inspiration followed by more work released a classic. Nor did “Ted” stop there; he went on to pen and publish a whole line of early readers and also answered Bennett Cerf’s challenge to produce a tale using only 50 different words (“Could he? Would he?”) with another game-changer. Hawkes opens with an integrated 1954 street scene (“a great year to be a kid, unless you were trying to learn how to read”) and closes with hat tips from the Cat and Sam-I-Am. In between he shows the then–clean-shaven Geisel (sometimes in “outlandish” hats of his own) hard at work surrounded by fantastical creatures drawn in Seussian cartoon style and placed against more-realistic, painterly scenes. He plays his typewriter like a magisterial pipe organist in one picture and bears that distinctive elfin grin throughout. Notes from Sierra, Hawkes, and the master himself bring up the rear.
Buoyantly told, rich in insights into the creative process as well as the crafts of writing, illustrating, and storytelling. (book list) (Picture book/biography. 7-10)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-553-51097-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
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