A playful introduction to various art movements, albeit a narrow one with weak backmatter.
A range of art styles is explored in this picture book that invites readers to imagine how various artists would paint a snowman.
An anthropomorphic hamster wields a paintbrush in opening double-page spreads alongside narration that never mentions it. “If someone asked you to paint a snowman, you would probably start with three white circles stacked upon one another.” The hamster is doing exactly that. It then describes how 17 different artists would paint a snowman, describing diverse styles, techniques, and movements. Diversity ends on that note, however, with only three women among the 17 artists (Georgia O’Keefe, Pablita Velarde, and Sonia Delaunay), one person of color (Jacob Lawrence) and one Native person (Pablita Velarde). The examples of the art mimic some of the artists’ famous paintings but incorporate imagined snowmen into them. For example, Dali’s “snowmen drip like melted cheese” in a double-page spread that emulates The Persistence of Memory with flattened, drooping snowmen rather than timepieces depicted on the surreal landscape. The off-and-on reappearance of the artist hamster seems a bit intrusive, but a closing spread with a blank easel nicely invites readers to copy it and make their own snowman painting. Endnotes provide further context about the artists, but they do not consistently name the referenced paintings or provide sources for quotations.
A playful introduction to various art movements, albeit a narrow one with weak backmatter. (Picture book. 5-9)Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-88448-593-3
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Tilbury House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A unique angle on a watershed moment in the civil rights era.
The New Orleans school child who famously broke the color line in 1960 while surrounded by federal marshals describes the early days of her experience from a 6-year-old’s perspective.
Bridges told her tale to younger children in 2009’s Ruby Bridges Goes to School, but here the sensibility is more personal, and the sometimes-shocking historical photos have been replaced by uplifting painted scenes. “I didn’t find out what being ‘the first’ really meant until the day I arrived at this new school,” she writes. Unfrightened by the crowd of “screaming white people” that greets her at the school’s door (she thinks it’s like Mardi Gras) but surprised to find herself the only child in her classroom, and even the entire building, she gradually realizes the significance of her act as (in Smith’s illustration) she compares a small personal photo to the all-White class photos posted on a bulletin board and sees the difference. As she reflects on her new understanding, symbolic scenes first depict other dark-skinned children marching into classes in her wake to friendly greetings from lighter-skinned classmates (“School is just school,” she sensibly concludes, “and kids are just kids”) and finally an image of the bright-eyed icon posed next to a soaring bridge of reconciliation. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A unique angle on a watershed moment in the civil rights era. (author and illustrator notes, glossary) (Autobiographical picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-338-75388-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses.
An NBA star pays tribute to the influence of his grandfather.
In the same vein as his Long Shot (2009), illustrated by Frank Morrison, this latest from Paul prioritizes values and character: “My granddad Papa Chilly had dreams that came true,” he writes, “so maybe if I listen and watch him, / mine will too.” So it is that the wide-eyed Black child in the simply drawn illustrations rises early to get to the playground hoops before anyone else, watches his elder working hard and respecting others, hears him cheering along with the rest of the family from the stands during games, and recalls in a prose afterword that his grandfather wasn’t one to lecture but taught by example. Paul mentions in both the text and the backmatter that Papa Chilly was the first African American to own a service station in North Carolina (his presumed dream) but not that he was killed in a robbery, which has the effect of keeping the overall tone positive and the instructional content one-dimensional. Figures in the pictures are mostly dark-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-81003-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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