An enlightening look at vibrant designs and their place in Hmong traditions.
A detailed guide explores a form of textile art.
This lushly illustrated book places the Hmong reverse appliqué technique in its cultural context, examines the traditional motifs used in the designs, and presents dozens of examples of needlework produced by artisans in Laos, Thai refugee camps, and the United States. Gerdner offers a high-level overview of Hmong culture and the impact of the Vietnam War, when Laos’ involvement in the conflict led to thousands of people leaving the country. After a brief glimpse of how reverse appliqué is constructed, the book explores the common motifs used by creators, explaining the meanings and purposes and showing how different artists have interpreted imagery, including the double snail, the elephant foot, and the cucumber seed. The volume’s many photographs from various sources clearly capture the vivid colors and geometric features of the designs, making it easy to appreciate the works on an aesthetic level as well as their role as a cultural production. While casual readers may wish for a more detailed explanation of how reverse appliqué is created (a visual tutorial covers many of the steps but not all), those familiar with sewing techniques will have no trouble following the demonstration. That quibble aside, the book’s high-quality pictures make it easy to appreciate the skill and labor involved in fashioning the designs, with many close-ups allowing readers to see individual stitches. In addition to images of the textiles discussed in these pages, Gerdner includes contemporary and historical photos of people wearing reverse appliqué garments, giving a distinct portrait of their use in daily life. The book engages with Hmong cultural traditions on their own level while making them comprehensible to readers who lack the expertise needed to fully interpret them. The writing is lucid and generally avoids technical jargon, making the volume appropriate for a general audience without specialist knowledge of textiles or Hmong culture and allowing it to be both informative and captivating.
An enlightening look at vibrant designs and their place in Hmong traditions.Pub Date: March 17, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-9986864-6-2
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Pizzicato Press
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
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