In the Adventures in Art series, Pfleger offers art lovers a chance to spend a day with Picasso, to glimpse his art, and to experience how this artist may have lived. Picasso’s wife, Franáoise, manages to deter an anxious gallery owner, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, who arrives early to collect a new painting. Picasso, in the meantime, hasn’t finished the painting, and is snoozing late to make up for lost sleep. When he finally rises, he gets up to paint, eat lunch, and play with his children. In the afternoon he paints from a model and prepares his costume for that evening’s masquerade party. Interwoven throughout his daily routine are reproductions of his art and explanations of how they reflect his life. The reproductions are good, but so are the black-and-white photos of Picasso—with his family, just fooling around, or creating art. Even if the actual day is fictionalized, the ambience is spot on, making this a more effective biography for children than many standard narrative accounts. (Picture book. 8-12)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2000
ISBN: 3-7913-2165-X
Page Count: 28
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
This vibrant, thoughtful book from Katz (Over the Moon, 1997) continues her tribute to her adopted daughter, Lena, born in Guatemala. Lena is “seven. I am the color of cinnamon. Mom says she could eat me up”; she learns during a painting lesson that to get the color brown, she will have to “mix red, yellow, black, and white paints.” They go for a walk to observe the many shades of brown: they see Sonia, who is the color of creamy peanut butter; Isabella, who is chocolate brown; Lucy, both peachy and tan; Jo-Jin, the color of honey; Kyle, “like leaves in fall”; Mr. Pellegrino, the color of pizza crust, golden brown. Lena realizes that every shade is beautiful, then mixes her paints accordingly for portraits of her friends—“The colors of us!” Bold illustrations celebrate diversity with a child’s open-hearted sensibility and a mother’s love. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8050-5864-8
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1999
PLB 0-688-13166-2 King Midas And The Golden Touch ($16.00; PLB $15.63; Apr.; 32 pp.; 0-688-13165-4; PLB 0-688-13166-2): The familiar tale of King Midas gets the golden touch in the hands of Craft and Craft (Cupid and Psyche, 1996). The author takes her inspiration from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s retelling, capturing the essence of the tale with the use of pithy dialogue and colorful description. Enchanting in their own right, the illustrations summon the Middle Ages as a setting, and incorporate colors so lavish that when they are lost to the uniform gold spurred by King Midas’s touch, the point of the story is further burnished. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-688-13165-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
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