For all that it’s up to date (for now), of more artistic than historical merit.
In order from Washington to Trump, a gallery of big, full-face presidential portraits done in exuberant strokes and spatters.
Less venturesome in subject matter than her woman-focused Limitless (2018) and characterized by the same legibility issues, this is a step sideways rather than forward for Tinari. More style than substance, it’s unlikely to achieve her stated intent (except in the most literal sense) to “add some splashes of bold, bright color to our US story.” That color comes largely in isolated highlights of purple, red, or another single color added to the broadly brushed grayscale portraits. The sparse snippets of fact that are lettered or lightly stenciled around each portrait or printed on facing pages are too scattershot to reveal much about each president’s public or private character. Along with leaving Jefferson off Mount Rushmore while identifying the other three carved there, for instance, the author lets out that he “popularized French fries and ice cream” and “owned over 600 slaves.” While she mentions (but neglects to unpack) the confusing claim that Andrew Johnson “WAS impeached but WASN’T removed from OFFICE,” for Bill Clinton she notes only that he presided over “1 of the longest periods of peace and economic expansion in American history.” The closing table of additional facts has a similarly arbitrary air.
For all that it’s up to date (for now), of more artistic than historical merit. (Informational picture book. 7-10)Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5344-1857-8
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Aug. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Visuals dominate on the page. Harris adds to large photos and samples of Parrish’s adult work an elaborately detailed dragon...
The generous (if selective and unfocused) array of pictures don’t quite compensate for a vague, sketchy accompanying narrative in this biography, the first about the influential painter aimed at young people.
Visuals dominate on the page. Harris adds to large photos and samples of Parrish’s adult work an elaborately detailed dragon he drew at age 7, a letter from his teens festooned with funny caricatures and a page of college chemistry notes tricked out with Palmer Cox–style brownies. Rather than include “Daybreak” (his most famous work) or any of Parrish’s characteristically androgynous figures, though, she tucks in semi-relevant but innocuous images from other artists of places Parrish visited and—just because in his prime he was grouped with them for the wide popularity of his reproduced art—a Van Gogh and a Cézanne. Along with steering a careful course in her account of Parrish’s private life (avoiding any reference to his lifelong mistress and frequent model Sue Lewin, for instance), the author makes only a few vague comments about the artist’s distinctive style and technique. In the same vein, she passes quickly over his influences, reduces all of his book-illustration work to one brief mention and closes with the laughable claim that he was the first artist in history who “created for more than a few.”Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4556-1472-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Pelican
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
It’s an often-told story, but the author is still in a position to give it a unique perspective.
The author of Promises to Keep: How Jackie Robinson Changed America (2004) tells her father’s tale again, for younger readers.
Though using a less personal tone this time and referring to herself in the third person, Robinson still devotes as much attention to his family life, youth and post-baseball career as she does to his achievements on the field. Writing in short sentences and simple language, she presents a clear picture of the era’s racial attitudes and the pressures he faced both in the military service and in baseball—offering plenty of clear reasons to regard him not just as a champion athlete, but as a hero too. An early remark about how he ran with “a bunch of black, Japanese, and Mexican boys” while growing up in Pasadena is insensitively phrased, and a sweeping claim that by 1949 “[t]he racial tension was broken” in baseball is simplistic. Nevertheless, by and large her account covers the bases adequately. The many photos include an admixture of family snapshots, and a closing Q-and-A allows the author to announce the imminent release of a new feature film about Robinson.
It’s an often-told story, but the author is still in a position to give it a unique perspective. (Biography. 8-10)Pub Date: March 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-54006-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
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