Well-presented and artfully organized in a clear framework, this book will inspire readers to get outside and create.
A young white child in a red-and-white–striped shirt and black leggings creates art using the natural world and the imagination in this picture book.
Speaking in first person, a fair-haired, pigtailed imp of a child leads readers through the journey of creating art both from and in the natural world. The book follows a clear three-part framework. The first part introduces a double-page spread in which the child announces the artistic palette to readers (“I am a forest artist”) while the accompanying illustration shows the surrounding environment. The child is sketched, but the forest illustration comprises collaged photographs of leaves, ferns, and other natural objects. The page turn reveals a double-page spread that depicts the budding artistic idea as the child begins to imagine found objects into a creation. The third double-page spread shows the final creation. This framework is repeated for “I am a beach artist,” “I am a rain artist,” and “I am a sky artist”—as each new environment reinforces how the child uses imagination to create using what is immediately available. The illustrations’ use of photographic images and collages encourages readers to find objects like these to make creations of their own, as does the artist’s final exhortation: “So, what will you make today?”
Well-presented and artfully organized in a clear framework, this book will inspire readers to get outside and create. (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-328-70736-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
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Skip.
The ever-popular pioneering female pilot gets a breezy and very incomplete biography.
Meltzer gives Amelia a first-person voice and, in a very sketchy narrative laced with comic-book speech bubbles, presents her as a dare-devil tomboy. The flying bug hits her when she goes up for a flight with Frank Hawks at the age of 23. She tries her hand at different jobs to earn money for flying lessons; Meltzer, writing too glibly, calls stenography, one of those failed efforts, a “fancy-schmancy word.” As Amelia makes her solo trans-Atlantic flight, she shouts, “This is AWESOME!”—a word no doubt intended to resonate with contemporary readers but unlikely to have occurred to Earhart at the moment. The text concludes with an exhortation to “Never let anyone stop you. / Whatever your dream is, chase it. / Work hard for it.” There is nary a mention of her final, disastrous around-the-world flight and disappearance over the Pacific. Eliopoulos’ digitally rendered art is cartoon in style, with Earhart resembling a bobblehead doll and wearing an aviator hat and goggles. The audience for this mixed-up comic/bio is not at all clear. Given its incomplete information and lack of source material (an actual quote from Earhart is unreferenced), there is no justifying calling it a biography. Nor is there enough entertainment to call this a comic book.
Skip. (photographs) (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8037-4082-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
An engaging story arguing for the marriage of technology with creativity and play.
A young girl receives a puzzling gift.
Young Charlotte has always been the most tech-savvy member of her family, helping her mother with a tablet and her father with the smart TV. After Charlotte’s parents observe a news report cautioning against letting kids get “too techy,” the couple presents Charlotte with a doll. The doll doesn’t move or think—it simply sits and utters the word “Ma-ma.” Charlotte reasons that for a doll to talk it must have a power supply, and with a few modifications and a little imagination, Charlotte’s doll becomes Doll-E 1.0. The STEM-friendly narrative is brought to life with charming pencil-and-watercolor illustrations, edited in Photoshop. The scratchy lines are reminiscent of the pictures children like Charlotte sketch at their drawing boards, and the dynamic compositions burst with energy. Charlotte is an engaging character, expressive and thoughtful in equal measure. Charlotte’s doll is adorably rendered, looking mostly like any other common doll but just unique enough that little ones may want one of their own. Charlotte and her family present white; little dog Bluetooth is a scruffy, white terrier.
An engaging story arguing for the marriage of technology with creativity and play. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: May 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-51031-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
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