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PAINTING THE WIND by Michelle Dionetti

PAINTING THE WIND

by Michelle Dionetti & illustrated by Kevin Hawkes

Pub Date: Oct. 1st, 1996
ISBN: 0-316-18602-3
Publisher: Little, Brown

Dionetti tells ``A Story of Vincent van Gogh,'' viewing the familiar story of the painter through the eyes of his real charwoman's fictional youngest daughter, Claudine. The townspeople call him Fou Roux, the crazy redhead. He paints outdoors in the heat of the day, by candlelight at night, even in the wild wind called the mistral. Claudine observes or learns of now-famous events: Gauguin's visit, their quarrel, and van Gogh's cutting of his ear. She tries to see the world through van Gogh's eyes, finding purple in the trees and flames in their branches. Hawkes's oil paintings capture the beautiful light of southern France that ensorcelled van Gogh, and echo his visions of sunflowers, a bright table, a starry night. Children will come away with an understanding that art is a different way of seeing, that name-calling always hurts, and that kindness may be rewarded—but those messages are laid out with a hand that is occasionally heavy. (Picture book. 6-10)