Review by Booklist Review
Gr. 2^-4, younger for reading aloud. Subtitled "A Portrait," this picture book for older children portrays Georgia O'Keeffe through words as clear, spare, and rhythmic as the painter's compositions. Only the bare bones of her story emerge, but they provide a solid framework for children who want to know more about the artist. Winter tells the story from O'Keeffe's point of view, a potentially risky move that succeeds, bringing immediacy and personality to the narrative. Beginning with the artist's childhood, the text shows that O'Keeffe was an unconventional person who wanted to make something beautiful and was satisfied to be alone while doing so. The story follows her from her birthplace in Wisconsin, to school in Chicago and New York, to the Texas plains, back to New York, and finally to the desert in New Mexico. Throughout, the focus is on her vision and her paintings. Each page includes a line or two of text and an illustration. The wide, white borders intensify the deep muted colors of the pictures, which often break out into the surrounding white space. A quiet, yet intense look at Georgia O'Keeffe's life and work. --Carolyn Phelan
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Winter (illustrator of Diego) takes command of the picture book format to distill the essence of artist Georgia O'Keeffe. In prose as vivid as an O'Keeffe painting, Winter traces the life of this extraordinary woman who dedicated herself from childhood to her craft. The author captures readers' attention from the start by showing the creative seeds planted early on, as young Georgia rides by horse and cart from her Wisconsin farm to town every Saturday "to copy pictures from the stack in the art teachers' cupboard." Winter's poetic text carries readers effortlessly through the painter's years at art school in Chicago and New York ("I walked down in the canyons of steel") to her final home in New Mexico, where her subjects were the bleached bones, vast sky and red desert hills. Winter's compelling portrait depicts an artist whose laser-like focus allowed her to share her unique vision of something as expansive as the sky or as particular as a flower ("I painted it BIG, so people would notice"). Enhanced with selected quotes from O'Keeffe herself, this outstanding biography is easily one of Winter's best efforts to date. Visually, she pays homage to the artist with enough details to suggest the famous flower, skull and sky paintings, but wisely adheres to her own signature style to convey O'Keeffe and her environs. Winter's strength of line and saturated colors are a luscious blend of folk art simplicity and her singular paletteÄskyscrapers of purple and plum; black clouds against a baby blue moon; desert hills of salmon pink outlined against lavender skies. A superb and inspiring introduction for children to an exceptional American artist. Ages 6-10. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 3-This admirable book gives readers a peek at the beginnings and inspirations of an artist. Rather than spouting off facts about O'Keeffe's personal life, it explores the motivations, growth, and drive that powered one of this century's most famous painters. The overall look and tone of the book are similar to Jonah Winter's Diego (Knopf, 1994), also illustrated by Jeanette Winter. Baby Georgia is shown lying in a flattened circle of prairie grass with a wider circle of clouds around her. That bull's-eye focus on O'Keeffe never shifts-hardly any other people are mentioned or pictured. The bold and almost primitive paintings seem like windows into her perceptions. Also wonderful is the way that the woman gradually ages in the illustrations. The wording is spare and simple, but uses metaphor and imagery effectively. The first-person narrative paints a portrait, and italicized quotations are smoothly woven into the text. This book has a wonderful direct voice that is lacking in the more standard fare. Combine it with more biographical titles, photos, and reproductions of the artist's paintings for a lively, personal overview of a fascinating life.-Torrie Hodgson, Burlington Public Library, WA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
(Intermediate) A biography only in the broadest, sparest sense, this modest volume instead traces the contours of O'Keeffe's creative landscape: "I painted a camellia. I painted it BIG, so people would notice. I painted a jack-in-the-pulpit. I painted it BIG, so people would see." The book does give a birth date, follows the artist's journey from home to school in Chicago, to New York, to Texas, and back to New York (where an unnamed Alfred Stieglitz makes a cameo appearance), and finally to New Mexico. Just as Winter's text fluently weaves in quotes from the artist's own writings, the small, square illustrations, identically sized throughout the book, their borders broken by clouds and birds and bones, evoke famous O'Keeffe motifs and images, with Winter's sensuous colors echoing those of her subject's. A final full-bleed double-spread breaks through the confines of the book design, and appropriately enough: it shows the now-old artist walking down from her beloved Pedernal mountain, while her monumental Sky Above Clouds floats above the setting sun into the rising stars. r.s. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A picture-book evocation both fierce and tender of one of America's greatest painters. Winter uses a first-person narration to tell Georgia O'Keeffe's story, sometimes with quotations from O'Keeffe's own writings, but always capturing the sound of her voice: ``God told me if I painted that mountain enough, he'd give it to me.'' O'Keeffe knew what she wanted from a very young age; readers and listeners follow her journey from Wisconsin, where she was born, to art school in Chicago, to Texas, then to New York, and on to New Mexico. In the illustrations, O'Keeffe grows from a very young girl to a very old woman; evoked (not copied) in these pages are many of the motifs found in her paintingsred hills, blue sky, huge flowers, graceful bones. A powerful message, precisely told, as fine as Michael Bedard's Emily (1992) or Barbara Cooney's Eleanor (1996). (bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 4-10)
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
