A veritable feast for the eyes and the mind.
Picture-book biographies about this important American artist abound; this one takes a path less traveled.
The book opens with Georgia O’Keeffe’s famed flower paintings but quickly shifts focus. After fleeing busy New York for “the wide skies” of New Mexico, the artist bought a home in Abiquiú in 1945. In addition to painting, she grew a garden, cooked, and baked. Readers will learn what she planted, how she relied on organic means to keep destructive insects at bay, and how her gardening and painting were deeply intertwined. When showcasing O’Keeffe’s art, Robinson employs quotes (undocumented, but a bibliography is provided). Hooper incorporates her subject’s style and content in key scenes: city skyscrapers against a darkened sky; puffy, isolated clouds foregrounding the garden. While O’Keeffe’s relationship to Alfred Stieglitz is not mentioned, the title does connect her childhood experiences on a Wisconsin farm to her adult pursuits. Shifting perspectives and dynamic design accompany interesting details, beautifully described. In one scene, a pea vine crosses the gutter diagonally, while small, sequential insets in mustard and black show O’Keeffe painting, sewing, and collecting bones as her garden grows. Following the harvest, a bountiful table with home-grown goodness and delectable desserts is paired with a recipe card for pecan butterballs. Who knew?
A veritable feast for the eyes and the mind. (photograph, biographical note, information on sustainable gardening, pecan butterballs recipe) (Informational picture book. 5-9)Pub Date: March 19, 2024
ISBN: 9780823452668
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Neal Porter/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
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Bridges Goes to School, but here the sensibility is more personal, and the sometimes-shocking historical photos have been replaced by uplifting painted scenes.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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