The paired lessons—of art as a crucial element in education and of the importance of recognizing different learning...
Art is a language, and the right teacher can change a life is the twin message of this personal story from the exuberant author/illustrator.
Polacco provides an unabashedly autobiographical account of a year in grammar school with the Irish Mr. Donovan, who understands that she needs additional time to work at written tests. He also introduces her to Miss Chew, an art teacher, and both immediately recognize Trisha's emerging talent—although the Chinese Miss Chew hears her name as “Ther-esa” and calls her that ever after. It is Miss Chew who discerns Trisha's talent at perceiving negative space and connects it to her difficulties in school: She sees words as patterns, not letters. When Mr. Donovan is called to Ireland upon the death of his father, the substitute will not allow Trisha extra time on exams and tries to keep her from art class. Right prevails—and Trisha gets to have a painting in the high-school art fair, even though she is so young. Polacco's pencil-and-marker art is full of color and movement, with its exaggerated figures and vibrant line. Her characters are always gesturing, caught in mid-sentence. Her first-person narration tells her tragedy and triumph in a very down-to-earth way, using the tone of the 11-year-old she was.
The paired lessons—of art as a crucial element in education and of the importance of recognizing different learning styles—come through clearly, leavened by Polacco's use of color and gesture. (Picture book. 6-10)Pub Date: April 12, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-399-25703-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2012
This compilation of paragraphs about one hundred of America’s most famous women ranges from the dawn of the nation to the current millennium, highlighting the women trailblazers who have altered its history forever. Including the likes of Pocahontas and Abigail Adams, as well as Martha Stewart, Oprah Winfrey, and Julie Taymor, there are few who have not been included in individual as well as collective biographies. Spies, poets, abolitionists, suffragists, politicians, scientists, painters, dancers, nurses, and doctors are all pictured within the context of their period of history. Each double-paged spread (“Turn of the Century,” “The Great War,” “The Great Depression,” etc.) opens with a very brief overview and includes four to six women. By design, each of these figures is reduced to a few lines, highlighting not much more than a basic fact or two. “They admired the flowers, and bones, and bright, bleak New Mexican landscapes painted by Georgia O’Keefe (1887–1986).” Harness’s signature colors are attractive and her intent is certainly laudable, but it would be difficult to determine exactly the purpose of giving such short shrift to these important women. Useful, perhaps, as a starting point with an eye toward inspiration, a timeline, glossary, and lists of historic sites and women’s organizations, as well as a bibliography and recommended reading list will help. (Nonfiction. 7-9)
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2001
ISBN: 0-688-17017-X
Page Count: 64
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2001
In her first book for children since Ashanti to Zulu (1976, a Caldecott winner for illustrators Leo and Diane Dillon), Musgrove retells a beguiling Ashanti tale about the origin of kente cloth. Two gentle weavers discover by chance an astonishing, multicolored spider web in the forest. To their dismay—as much at the spider’s loss as their own—their efforts to carry it home for study destroy it. Returning to the spot the next day, however, the two find it re-spun, and its arachnid creator waiting to dance its patterns for them until they can create their own webs. In Cairns’s (Off to the Sweet Shores of Africa, 2000) big, vibrant illustrations the spider’s webs, and the cloth that they inspire, are symphonies of dazzling, saturated color, artfully set off both by lush tropical backgrounds, and the deep skin tones of the human figures. Like kente cloth itself, this will have a powerful visual impact on all who see it, and Musgrove adds value to her simply told narrative with a concluding discussion of her sources and the significance of the cloth’s various patterns. (Picture book/folktale. 6-8)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-590-98787-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Blue Sky/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2000
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