art

Review: Blue Chicken by Deborah Freedman

| Tasha

blue chicken

Blue Chicken by Deborah Freedman

This vibrant picture book plays with color and perspective as well as characters who leave the flat page and enter the real world.  The picture is almost finished when one of the chickens in the picture pops her head out.  She then stands up and walks over to the paint pots that are waiting to finish the picture.  When the chicken peeks into the blue paint, she accidentally tips it over and ends up painting herself.  She is joined by a little duckling and then more who splash around in the new blue puddle, turning themselves and the cat who walked past blue.  Soon all of the animals are blue.  Now what can be done to turn them all back to normal?

There is a wonderful playfulness about this title.  Even the grumpy animals end up enjoying the escapade.  At the same time, there are lots of options to discuss colors, perspective, and art.  The book has real depth to it, allowing it to be read just as a cute story, or used more seriously with children. 

The words are simple and try to stay out of the way, allowing the art to really shine here.  And shine it certainly does.  It dazzles and glows, inviting young readers into the humor of the book and revealing a magical quality that is lovely.  From the freshness of the first spill of the blue to the sogginess and flatness that results, there is an exploration of the media here right on the page. 

Highly recommended, this is one of my favorite picture books of the year.  It is a charming jewel of a picture book that is fun, silly, yet offers plenty to learn.  Appropriate for ages 3-6.

Reviewed from copy received from Viking Books.

Also reviewed by Fuse #8.

Review: Page by Paige by Laura Lee Gulledge

| Tasha

page by paige

Page by Paige by Laura Lee Gulledge

Paige has just moved with her family to New York City.  She is having trouble relating to her mother and had to leave her best friend behind.  Now she has to find people in the big city who can understand her.  But before she can do that, she has to start to understand herself.  Is she the quiet girl or can she become an extroverted artist?  As Paige struggles to find herself and to find her voice as an artist, readers are treated to an extraordinary look at the process of art combined with the process of finding friends and love.

Gulledge has created a graphic novel where the visuals are powerful and speak volumes.  She turns the comic format into one that is strongly artistic and very visual.  Here we see the emotions of Paige brought to visual life from her self-doubts to her most self-aware.  Paige is a character that readers with artistic interests will relate to easily.  Her yearning to create combined with her doubts and worries make for a book with plenty to inspire other young artists to take the risk of creation.

Get this in the hands of tween and teen artists and step back.  A truly inspiring read.  Appropriate for ages 12-15.

Reviewed from library copy.

Also reviewed by:

Check out the trailer that gives a sense of the great art:

Review: Magic Trash by Jane Shapiro

| Tasha

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Magic Trash: A Story of Tyree Guyton and His Art by J. H. Shapiro, illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton

This is the life story of Tyree Guyton.  Tyree grew up in Detroit in a large family.  He was always picking up stray objects and creating things with them.  At age nine, Tyree decided he wanted to be an artist.  But as the years passed, he worked many jobs, none of them artistic.  When he returned back home, his street has changed from a bustling neighborhood into a stretch of dilapidated  houses.  So Tyree went to work, painting everything he could find.  Houses got polka dots, bright colors were everywhere, found objects were incorporated.  But not everyone loved Tyree’s work, they considered it garbage.  Houses were knocked down by the city, until finally after years, Tyree’s art was safe.  This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Heidelberg Project, certainly something to celebrate!

Shapiro has written this book with a sparkle and jazz that suits the subject.  Her storytelling is impressive as she creates moods that change from one page to the next as the story progresses.  She weaves in rhyming lines at times, adding to the distinctive feel of her words.

Brantley-Newton’s art is done in mixed media, incorporating found objects, torn pages filled with words, painting, pattern and texture.  Her art is bright, beautiful and vibrant.  Against the distinctive backgrounds, her characters stand out with great charm.

A look at street art that is part of the street, this book will be enjoyed by art teachers and budding young artists alike.  Appropriate for ages 6-9.

Reviewed from copy received from Charlesbridge.

Book Review: Bee & Bird by Craig Frazier

| Tasha

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Bee & Bird by Craig Frazier

A simple wordless story is made remarkable by bright, graphic illustrations.  This is the story of a bee and a bird and their journey, but what journey are they on?  They are in a tree, the tree is on a truck, and then could the truck be driving on the back of a cow?  Then there’s a boat on an ocean, that is actually a toy boat.  As perspectives shift, the epic adventure becomes more of a neighborhood jaunt.  It’s a trip that readers will happily make with the pair, finding surprises at almost every page turn.

Frazier, author of the wonderful Lots of Dots, has created another great book for children.  His vibrant illustrations use bold colors, strong shapes, and inventive perspectives to turn a normal day into a series of surprising twists.

Art teachers will embrace this book for its clear depiction of perspective.  At the same time, it is also a rocking picture book that young readers will equally enjoy.  Appropriate for ages 3-6, older when used to discuss perspective.

Reviewed from copy received from Roaring Brook Press.

Also reviewed by

Check out the book trailer for some of those perspective shifts:

Book Review: Perfect Square by Michael Hall

| Tasha

perfectsquare

Perfect Square by Michael Hall

One perfect square is transformed again and again into something surprising and new.  On Monday, the square had holes poked in it and was cut into pieces, so it became a fountain.  On Tuesday, the square was torn into scraps, so it became a garden.  Shredded strips became a park.  Shattered shards became a bridge.  Ribbons with curves became a river.  Wrinkles and crumples became a mountain.  Until finally, the square was just a square again and had to find a way to change within its four sides.  The result?  Triumphant!

This very simple premise offers small children a glimpse at art and inspiration.  It celebrates creativity, creating something new from something ripped, crumpled or sliced.  Hall sets the perfect tone with his brief text, allowing the images to do most of the work in the book.  My favorite part of the text is that the square is the one reinventing itself rather than an outside force doing the creativity.  It changes the dynamic of the book entirely.

I can see so many art project emerging from this book.  Get it into the hands of elementary art teachers in your school district!  If you enjoy crafts with your preschool story times, share some squares of paper in a variety of colors, offer scissors, hole punches, markers and more.  You just wait to see what those children create!  Appropriate for ages 3-6.

Reviewed from library copy.

Also reviewed by Fuse #8 and There’s a Book.

Okay for Now: A Brilliant, Amazing Read

| Tasha

okayfornow

Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt

Released April 18, 2011.

Let me make this simple – READ THIS BOOK!  If you are a fan of the book this is a companion book to The Wednesday Wars, you will fall head-over-heels for this one.  If you never read that book, it doesn’t matter, still read this one.  It stands on its own fantastically well.  In this book, a small character from The Wednesday Wars is given his own book.  Doug Swieteck is a boy who has just moved to a new town with a brother who gets into plenty of trouble, a mother who smiles far too rarely, and a father whose hands are fast when he is angry, which is most of the time.  But Doug is more than the “skinny thug” that people assume he is, much more.  This coming of age story set in 1968 is about how a entire town can be wrong and how that same town can help raise a boy to be the man he is capable of being. 

This is my favorite Schmidt book yet, and that is saying something!  The characterizations here are so well rendered.  The people are real, tangible and each and every person in the book is human and complex.  Yet the book remains fresh, easily read, easily related to, and vibrant.  It is a book with space inside it for the reader to make realizations, come to conclusions, and bring their own perspective. 

Told in first person by Doug, the voice of the book is entirely his own.  It never stumbles, never becomes an adult looking at the situation, never lectures.  Instead it learns as it speaks, realizes as it voices and sometimes doesn’t figure out what the reader has come to understand.  It is raw, beautiful and heartrending.  

I’m afraid I cannot capture in my review what this book is.  To say that it should be a contender for an award this year is to lessen it.  Instead, this book is one that can honestly change the way a child sees themselves.  Not through anything didactic, but instead just allowing an honesty to pervade the book, a realization to happen, art and words to flow and reveal.

An unforgettable book that is sure to be a classic in years to come, this is a book that defies categorization and summary.  Appropriate for ages 11-14.

Reviewed from NetGalley digital galley.

 

Also reviewed by:

Me, Frida: Intensely Beautiful

| Tasha

Me, Frida by Amy Novesky, illustrated by David Diaz

2011 Pura Belpre Honor Book for Illustration

Opening this book is like opening a treasure box filled with images that are deep, fiery, passionate and intensely beautiful.  This is the story of Frida Kahlo and her travel to San Francisco alongside her husband, artist Diego Rivera.  Rivera was hired to paint a mural for the city, but Frida was restless as he started work on it.  As Rivera spent longer and longer hours working, Frida was left alone in a a foreign country and big city.  She didn’t speak much English and knew almost no one.  So Frida began to explore the city on her own, allowing the things she loved to be the focus.  And in the process, she found her own voice and her own artistic vision.  She was no longer silent, but instead a vivacious beauty who would show the world what she was capable of.

Told in simple words by Novesky, this book captures the situation Frida found herself in with clarity.  The author also revels in Frida finding herself and her art, her explorations and her self awareness.  It is a celebration of more than Frida Kahlo.  It is a celebration of women artists of all sorts.  Diaz’s illustrations are done in acrylic, charcoal and varnish on linen.  The combination of media give the illustrations an amazing depth of color that is beautifully saturated at times and light and airy at others.  Just the use of drips in the illustrations is beautifully done.  The drips become age, emotions and trees.  They add a wild beauty to the images that suits the subject well.

A beautiful picture book about an amazing artist, this was surely worthy of the Pura Belpre Honor Award.  Appropriate for ages 7-9.

Reviewed from copy received from Abrams Books for Young Readers.

Also reviewed by TheHappyNappyBookseller.

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Salted Fish–A Taste of Singapore

| Tasha

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Salted Fish by Yeo Wei Wei, illustrated by Ye Shufang

Lynn is visiting an art museum for the first time.  She knows that the National Art Gallery will have lots of art inside it.  She and her toy bunny find a painting of fruit and then set out to see if they can find one with strawberries in it.  As they are looking, they smell something strange coming from one of the paintings.  As she counts things in the painting, she and her bunny hear a voice speaking from the painting.  Lynn finds herself drawn into the painting and learning about the way they are making salted fish.  The taste of the salted fish reminds her of her grandmother’s home.  As she leaves the painting with a bundle of fish to take with her, she promises to return to the art museum again.

The story here is told with a quiet, gentle voice.  Lynn’s interaction with the painting is not frightening at all, but an enthralling moment of connection.   It is what one hopes a child will experience at an art museum.  The story is built around a famous painting by Cheong Soo Pieng called Drying Salted Fish.  At the end of the book, information on the painting and the artist is shared. 

Shufang’s art is engaging with the bright-eyed child and the strong architectural lines of the building itself.  A muted palette that has pops of bright color at times adds to the quiet appeal of the book. 

This book gives young readers a small taste of Singapore which they will probably appreciate much more than the smell of salted fish!  Appropriate for ages 4-6.

Reviewed from book received from The National Art Gallery, Singapore.

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Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave

| Tasha

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Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave by Laban Carrick Hill, illustrated by Bryan Collier

Dave the Potter was an outstanding artist, poet and potter whose influence is still evident in South Carolina pottery.  He lived in the 1800s and created his pottery with amazing skill, building enormous pots that could up to 40 gallons.  He was one of only two potters known to have the strength and skill to create such large pieces.  Dave was also a poet, inscribing his verse on his pottery, offering two lines of poetry and then a date.  His poems have the beauty and simplicity of Haiku and offer a unique perspective of a poet surviving in slavery.  This is a picture book that makes an important figure in history come alive, revealing his art and poetry for children. 

Hill has created a free verse of his own to tell the story of the life of Dave.  Hill’s verse is simple and striking, drawing together the connections between the simple ingredients of the clay and what it can become and the simple life of a slave and the wonder of what Dave created.  The poem leads children through the stages of making a pot from the gathering of the clay to the magic and work of creating pottery.  The book ends with more of Dave’s poetry as well as an author’s note and an illustrator’s note.  All of them speaking to the influence and importance of Dave the Potter.

Collier’s art work here is stunningly beautiful.  His watercolor and collage art speaks to the strength of Dave, the skill of his hands and the glory of his work.  The colors are rich and deep, filled with a warm earthiness that evokes pottery and clay. 

A radiant tribute to an artist, this picture book echoes the transcendent artist that Dave was.  Appropriate for ages 5-8.

Reviewed from library copy.