Author Ortiz has a background in museums and making them more accessible, and in her work she makes a strong case for making...
A little girl steps into a piece of art and connects to a musician and artist from Hispaniola in a second book about the young girl’s introduction to different cultures (Sofi in the Magic, Musical Mural / Sofi y el mágico mural musical, 2015).
After Sofi is unable to create the color purple for art class, she leaves school frustrated. On her walk home, she finds a painter working in a nearby garden. Touching a painting, she finds herself meeting two important artists: Dominican Afro-Latin singer and composer Juan Luis Guerra and Haitian sculptor Guerlande Balan. Sofi helps Guerra finish the lyrics to a song and then makes a perfect purple to assist Balan with a statue. The book features blocks of text, English followed by Spanish, over mostly double-page spreads of Sofi’s adventure. While the story serves as a primer on some Haitian and Dominican terms and cultural touchstones, there’s not much to learn about Sofi herself, and the text doesn’t always rise to the occasion in either language. When she’s asked how she figured out how to make purple, Sofi says only and unsatisfyingly, “I guess I always knew. I just needed a little help from my friends.” What the book gets right is its advocacy for the power of art, even art that may seem out of reach at first.
Author Ortiz has a background in museums and making them more accessible, and in her work she makes a strong case for making those connections . (Bilingual picture book. 5-10)Pub Date: May 31, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-55885-883-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Piñata Books/Arte Público
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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