Rubin introduces the contemporary artist—now in his 80s—in an engaging biography for middle-grade readers. While she writes about Thiebaud’s life—growing up in California and Utah, cartooning, serving in World War II and teaching—she seamlessly integrates into the narrative how Thiebaud saw, how he looked at things like hamburgers, cakes, eyeglasses and shoes. He painted them in thick, luscious colors, exploring their geometry, their shadows and the way they occupy space. The design of the volume is brilliant, allowing for a full-page illustration on nearly every spread; laying white type over colored pages in the candy hues Thiebaud favors; and lacing it with quotes from the artist himself. A lively biography that also models quite lucidly how an artist thinks about art, and how he or she might go about making it. Delicious indeed. (bibliography, index) (Biography. 9-14)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-8118-5168-8
Page Count: 110
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2008
This excellent, well-researched book offers a rare peek into a fascinating culture, history, and people, in portraits of eight intrepid children and their families during the Alaskan/Yukon Territory gold rush. Murphy and Haigh give voices to children who tell of dangerous journeys to Alaskan mining camps, the brutal, cold winters, building small towns in rough terrain, and the disintegration of many families due to gold fever. The children adapted to a whole new way of life, prospected, entertained miners, and felt the effects of sudden fortune or bleak poverty. Fascinating sidebars address other children of the gold rush or other facets of that life, from schooling and the use of sled dogs, to panning for gold. Although the hardships are never glossed over, the design of the book has an antique charm, with photographs, ticket stubs, old handbills, maps, and journal excerpts. (glossary, further reading) (Nonfiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 1-57098-257-0
Page Count: 79
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PLB 0-06-027821-8 For Aliki (Marianthe’s Story, 1998, etc.), the story of the Globe Theatre is a tale of two men: Shakespeare, who made it famous, and Sam Wanamaker, the driving force behind its modern rebuilding. Decorating margins with verbal and floral garlands, Aliki creates a cascade of landscapes, crowd scenes, diminutive portraits, and sequential views, all done with her trademark warmth and delicacy of line, allowing viewers to glimpse Elizabethan life and theater, historical sites that still stand, and the raising of the new Globe near the ashes of the old. She finishes with a play list, and a generous helping of Shakespearean coinages. Though the level of information doesn’t reach that of Diane Stanley’s Bard of Avon (1992), this makes a serviceable introduction to Shakespeare’s times while creating a link between those times and the present; further tempt young readers for whom the play’s the thing with Marcia Williams’s Tales From Shakespeare (1998). (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-10)
Pub Date: May 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-027820-X
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
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