Comedic details, invented dialogue, and cartoonish portrayals tilt this account to the blithely lighthearted.
Following on Cézanne’s Parrot (2020), Guglielmo and Helquist reunite for a buoyant, kid-friendly distillation of Salvador Dalí’s life and art.
Focusing on Dalí’s boyhood impulses—exploration, imagination, doodling at school—the narrative quickly establishes the iconoclastic artist as an early irritant to his father, peers, and teacher. The reiterated complaint “Why can’t you…?” is rejoined with variations on the titular refrain: “But Salvador was just being himself.” A fortuitous convalescence with a painter’s family sparked Dalí’s avid artistic path. He entered a Madrid art academy, where boredom with technical mastery provoked rebellion and expulsion. A move to Paris engendered artistic experimentation, and Dalí found his compatriots, the early surrealists. Helquist here inserts painted thumbnails of works by famous peers: Magritte, Arp, Ernst, Ray, and Miró. His double-page spreads utilize clouds as conduits for playful imagery that aligns with Dalí’s intensely original imagination. The narrative follows Dalí and Gala, his lover and muse, back to Spain, then forth to the U.S., where the success of the small painting The Persistence of Memory (seen viewed by a diverse group of museumgoers) launched decades of fame for the prolific White artist. Guglielmo details some of Dalí’s increasingly sensational capers, which led the European surrealists finally to expel him. The result is to reduce Dalí’s work in design, collaboration, and what would today be seen as brand-building to antics that displeased critics but earned Dalí fans. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11-by-18-inch double-page spreads viewed at 75% of actual size.)
Comedic details, invented dialogue, and cartoonish portrayals tilt this account to the blithely lighthearted. (author’s note, selected bibliography, source notes, featured works of art) (Picture book/biography. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-984816-58-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
A supplemental rather than introductory book on the great artist.
Frida Kahlo’s strong affection for and identification with animals form the lens through which readers view her life and work in this picture-book biography.
Each two-page spread introduces one or more of her pets, comparing her characteristics to theirs and adding biographical details. Confusingly for young readers, the beginning pages reference pets she owned as an adult, yet the illustrations and events referred to come from earlier in her life. Bonito the parrot perches in a tree overlooking young Frida and her family in her childhood home and pops up again later, just before the first mention of Diego Rivera. Granizo, the fawn, another pet from her adult years, is pictured beside a young Frida and her father along with a description of “her life as a little girl.” The author’s note adds important details about Kahlo’s life and her significance as an artist, as well as recommending specific paintings that feature her beloved animals. Expressive acrylic paintings expertly evoke Kahlo’s style and color palette. While young animal lovers will identify with her attachment to her pets and may enjoy learning about the Aztec origins of her Xolo dogs and the meaning of turkeys in ancient Mexico, the book may be of most interest to those who already have an interest in Kahlo’s life.
A supplemental rather than introductory book on the great artist. (Picture book/biography. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7358-4269-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: NorthSouth
Review Posted Online: June 18, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
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
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