by Rebecca Chaperon ; illustrated by Rebecca Chaperon ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2014
Of doubtful utility as an idea book for young slackers but sure to draw a few chuckles from the teen leather-and-lip-ring...
An alphabet of excuses, from “A is for ASTRAL PROJECTION” to “Z is for ZOMBIE APOCALPYSE,” channels the gothic spirit of Edward Gorey.
The text follows the standard abecedary model, with a large single letter and a following line on each spread’s verso. The excuses range from at least faintly credible (“K is for KIDNAPPED”; “M is for MONONEUCLOSIS”) to such less-floatable plaints as “E is for ENNUI” and “G is for GREMLINS.” Painted largely on the covers, jackets or endpapers of old books (with the titles often visible), 26 neurasthenic girls cast in gloomy lighting and clad in school-uniform blouses, skirts and high boots poutingly model or act out each alibi amid minimally detailed surroundings. The backgrounds can be the best parts of the illustrations. Beastly Boys and Ghastly Girls is a nice complement to G; Out of the Night is positively brilliant for “I is for INSOMNIA”; A Perfect Spy makes mordant comment on “O is for OBSERVATION,” in which a drowning girl is espied through a pair of binoculars. Others are less successful: Why position an ex libris sticker over the conked-out girl in “N is for NARCOLEPSY”?
Of doubtful utility as an idea book for young slackers but sure to draw a few chuckles from the teen leather-and-lip-ring set—and grown-ups who often find themselves writing or receiving parental notes to the teacher. (Picture book. 12 & up)Pub Date: May 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-927018-40-8
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Simply Read
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
Share your opinion of this book
by Jerry Saltz ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020
A succinct, passionate guide to fostering creativity.
A noted critic advises us to dance to the music of art.
Senior art critic at New York Magazine and winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in Criticism, Saltz (Seeing Out Louder, 2009, etc.) became a writer only after a decadeslong battle with “demons who preached defeat.” Hoping to spare others the struggle that he experienced, he offers ebullient, practical, and wise counsel to those who wonder, “How can I be an artist?” and who “take that leap of faith to rise above the cacophony of external messages and internal fears.” In a slim volume profusely illustrated with works by a wide range of artists, Saltz encourages readers to think, work, and see like an artist. He urges would-be artists to hone their power of perception: “Looking hard isn’t just about looking long; it’s about allowing yourself to be rapt.” Looking hard yields rich sources of visual interest and also illuminates “the mysteries of your taste and eye.” The author urges artists to work consistently and early, “within the first two hours of the day,” before “the pesky demons of daily life” exert their negative influence. Thoughtful exercises underscore his assertions. To get readers thinking about genre and convention, for example, Saltz presents illustrations of nudes by artists including Goya, Matisse, Florine Stettheimer, and Manet. “Forget the subject matter,” he writes, “what is each of these paintings actually saying?” One exercise instructs readers to make a simple drawing and then remake it in an entirely different style: Egyptian, Chinese ink-drawing, cave painting, and the styles of other artists, like Keith Haring and Georgia O’Keeffe. Freely experiment with “different sizes, tools, materials, subjects, anything,” he writes. “Don’t resist something if you’re afraid it’s taking you far afield of your usual direction. That’s the wild animal in you, feeding.” Although much of his advice is pertinent to amateur artists, Saltz also rings in on how to navigate the art world, compose an artist’s statement, deal with rejection, find a community of artists, and beat back demons. Above all, he advises, “Work, Work, Work.”
A succinct, passionate guide to fostering creativity.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-08646-9
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
Share your opinion of this book
More by Jerry Saltz
BOOK REVIEW
by Jerry Saltz
by Hisham Matar ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 22, 2019
A beautifully written, pensive, and restorative memoir.
A quiet meditation on art and life.
Matar’s Pulitzer Prize–winning memoir, The Return (2016), was about his Libyan father who was kidnapped in Cairo and taken back, imprisoned, and “gradually, like salt dissolving in water, was made to vanish.” His father’s presence reverberates throughout this thoughtful, sensitive extended essay about the author’s visit to Siena, where he ruminates and reflects on paintings, faith, love, and his wife, Diana. Matar focuses on the 13th- to 15th-century Sienese School of paintings which “stood alone, neither Byzantine nor of the Renaissance, an anomaly between chapters, like the orchestra tuning its strings in the interval,” but he discusses others as well. First, he explores the town, “as intimate as a locket you could wear around your neck and yet as complex as a maze.” Day or night, the “city seemed to be the one determining the pace and direction of my walks.” In the Palazzo Pubblico, Matar scrutinized a series of frescos the “size of a tennis court” painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti in 1338. As the author writes, his Allegory of Good Government is a “hymn to justice.” Matar astutely describes it in great detail, as he does with all the paintings he viewed. When one is in a despondent mood, paintings, Matar writes, seem to “articulate a feeling of hope.” He also visited a vast cemetery, a “glimpse [of] death’s endless appetite.” Over the month, he talked with a variety of Sienese people, including a Jordanian man whom he befriended. One by one, paintings flow by: Caravaggio’s “curiously tragic” David With the Head of Goliath, Duccio di Buoninsegna’s “epic altarpiece,” Maestà. Mounted onto a cart in 1311, it was paraded through Siena. Along the way, Matar also ponders the metaphysics of rooms and offers a luminous, historical assessment of the Black Death.
A beautifully written, pensive, and restorative memoir.Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-12913-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
Share your opinion of this book
More by Hisham Matar
BOOK REVIEW
by Hisham Matar
BOOK REVIEW
by Hisham Matar
BOOK REVIEW
by Hisham Matar
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.