This large-format, 120-page Australian import is an exhaustive exposition of a unique art form, letter art.
In a two-page preface, Coote notes that the advent of the Apple Macintosh computer in the 1980s gave graphic designers access to a multitude of typefaces and the ability to freely manipulate letterforms to create “a kind of alphabetical sculpture, or pictorial anagram.” She defines her three rules for letter art by skill level. Beginners should use letters any way they choose; more-advanced practitioners should “use only the letters found in the correct spelling of the name” of their subject; and “Designers” should “use only the correct spelling and only one font per letter.” The book is divided into three sections: “Architext,” depicting architecture and famous monuments; “Alphabeasts,” showing a range of animals, complete with instructions and puzzles; and “Letterheads,” with instructions on how to portray facial features using letters along with skillful depictions of historical characters, artists, and showbiz personalities. (Frida Kahlo’s face lends itself well to this type of portrayal.) The visual puzzles are amusing and intriguing, but the text is written in a juvenile, "how to do it" mode, implying a level of practical potential that will ultimately disappoint many kids who would like to create these types of images, as most are unlikely to have the skills or technical resources required.
As an album of the art form, impressive; as instruction in it, less so. (Nonfiction. 8-14)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9924917-2-7
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Melbournestyle Books/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2016
Categories: CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS
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BOOK REVIEW
Can this really be the first time readers meet the Legendary Alston Boys of Logan County? Cousins and veteran sleuths Otto and Sheed Alston show us that we are the ones who are late to their greatness.
These two black boys are coming to terms with the end of their brave, heroic summer at Grandma’s, with a return to school just right around the corner. They’ve already got two keys to the city, but the rival Epic Ellisons—twin sisters Wiki and Leen—are steadily gaining celebrity across Logan County, Virginia, and have in hand their third key to the city. No way summer can end like this! These young people are powerful, courageous, experienced adventurers molded through their heroic commitment to discipline and deduction. They’ve got their shared, lifesaving maneuvers committed to memory (printed in a helpful appendix) and ready to save any day. Save the day they must, as a mysterious, bendy gentleman and an oversized, clingy platypus have been unleashed on the city of Fry, and all the residents and their belongings seem to be frozen in time and place. Will they be able to solve this one? With total mastery, Giles creates in Logan County an exuberant vortex of weirdness, where the commonplace sits cheek by jowl with the utterly fantastic, and populates it with memorable characters who more than live up to their setting.
This can’t be the last we ever hear of the Legendary Alston Boys of the purely surreal Logan County—imaginative, thrill-seeking readers, this is a series to look out for. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-328-46083-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Versify/HMH
Review Posted Online: Jan. 15, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
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PERSPECTIVES
Imported from France, Platonic realism for preteens, introduced by the great philosopher himself.
“Why is a horse called a horse” instead of, say, a giraffe? Or, for that matter, “flapdoodle”? Just to keep this all as far as possible from becoming a weighty discourse, a toga-clad, woolly-bearded White gent—plainly a philosopher—leads a Socratic-style enquiry loosely based on the Cratylus dialogue that sets up and culminates in an elaborate, fantastic pun. He then goes on to explain that “Plato” is a nickname that translates (very freely) as “Muscleman” and challenges readers to find out where their own names come from. Shibuya’s illustrations helpfully sustain the tone with images of onlookers in antique dress and vaguely Grecian settings along with various creatures led by a smirking horse, all set amid multiple flaps, small pop-ups, die-cut holes, and, at the end, a foil mirror. An attempt to make the point that “horse” is not a universal term goes off the rails, being both confusingly phrased and illustrated with a group of riders clad in stereotypical Native American and like ethnic garb. Otherwise, following Ronan de Calan and Donatien Mary’s The Ghost of Karl Marx, translated by Anna Street (2015), and other entries in the Plato & Co. series, this outing may dip barely a toe into its philosophical waters but does at least begin to demystify them. Stylized human figures throughout show mild differentiation in racial presentation and body type.
A quick and comical gallop into the world of ideas. (Informational novelty. 8-12)Pub Date: June 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-3-0358-0275-7
Page Count: 42
Publisher: Diaphanes/Univ. of Chicago
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
Categories: CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS
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