Review by New York Times Review
From a Chinese master to rebellious crayons, these picture books affirm the inspirational power of art. ASK a group of kindergartners how many of them are artists and every child will enthusiastically raise a hand. Ask that same question to progressively older groups of kids and the numbers of artists will diminish with each advancing grade, until in high school only a few ink-stained hands rise from the fringes. It seems the older they get, the artists who remain figure out how to turn their increasingly rarefied abilities into something like a magic trick to amaze their friends. I myself once wanted to become a magician - the kind in top hat and tails - but that impulse passed as quickly as my obsessions with ventriloquism and marionettes. The looks of mild curiosity I received when I fumbled my way through beginner's magic tricks paled in comparison with the downright stupefaction I was rewarded with when I used my drawing skills to turn a blank sheet of paper into a Corvette, a spaceship or an alien eating our homeroom teacher. Four new books on art and what inspires it are just right for children who dream of being artists - those classroom magicians whose tools of the trade are not white rabbits, scarves or even boxes containing women to be sawed in half, but rather humble pencils, pens and crayons used to transform a blank canvas, or wall, or page, into anything the imagination can conjure up. "Brush of the Gods," written by the veteran author Lenore Look, with illustrations by Meilo So evoking sumi ink paintings, depicts the life of Wu Daozi, China's "Sage of Painting," who lived during the Tang dynasty. The story opens with the young artist failing miserably at practicing the traditional art of calligraphy. He can't seem to help embellishing the simple characters he is asked to paint ; they become lively portraits of worms, fish and monkeys. (I had a similar problem: My long-division equations grew teeth and turned into alligators.) Wu Daozi succeeds at amazing his classmates and frustrating his teacher, an impressive sleight of hand, even to this day. Over time, Wu Daozi's creativity and enthusiasm refuse to be contained, spilling out of the classroom, into his village, then the local temple and finally the emperor's palace, where he spends his remaining years working on his masterpiece, a grand mural that beautifully blurs the line between art and magic. In "Henri's Scissors," Jeanette Winter rushes through the story of Henri Matisse's childhood, but no worries: it's his second (far more interesting) childhood that fascinates her. After becoming one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, whose only peer, it could be argued, was the aggressively prolific Picasso, Matisse has grown old. Now infirm and confined to bed, he reflects on his past triumphs in a room colored in the deepest blues and purples. But inspiration strikes, and using a pair of common household scissors as his magic wand, Matisse cuts shapes out of brightly colored paper and transforms his sickroom into a mystical garden full of flowers and birds. Then, in the final and greatest feat of his career as artist-sorcerer, "the rainbow of shapes cradled the old artist and carried him into the heavens." "Ike's Incredible Ink" and "The Day the Crayons Quit" are stories not of artists, but of something they have intimate knowledge of: their art supplies. In "Ike's Incredible Ink," Brianne Farley's protagonist is an inkblot who is looking for a new story to write. After a healthy round of procrastination, the cheerful black splatter concludes that he needs to create his very own ink. A blot of ink creating its own ink to write a story? Although I found the illustrations endearing, the narrative's lack of internal logic was a stumbling block I had a hard time getting over. But then again, I've always had a problem with Mickey Mouse owning Pluto. "The Day the Crayons Quit," by Drew Daywalt, rounds out the bunch. Illustrated by Oliver Jeffers, it offers little by way of plot. A schoolboy finds a mysterious parcel of letters addressed to him in what looks just like a child's handwriting. The letters, it turns out, are from his crayons, who deeply resent being typecast according to color. Red is tired of drawing apples and fire engines, Green is bored of coloring dinosaurs and frogs, and so on. Although the crayons' wacky voices are believably the kind of thing creative kids come up with when they're daydreaming, Daywalt's clever conceit seems stretched to its limit. One could imagine that instead of being written as a picture book, "The Day the Crayons Quit" might have worked better as an activity book, with lots of room for kids to add their own drawings to the pages. Although all four books celebrate artists, they are intended for the nonartist as well. Their masterly illustrations and inspiring stories may even recruit a few more children into the magical ranks. * Creative process: In "Henri's Scissors," an ailing Matisse transforms his sickroom into a "rainbow of shapes." BRUSH OF THE GODS By Lenore Look Illustrated by Meilo So 40 pp. Schwartz & Wade Books. $17.99. (Picture book; ages 4 to 8) HENRI'S SCISSORS Written and illustrated by Jeanette Winter 40 pp. Beach Lane Books. $16.99. (Picture book; ages 5 to 8) IKE'S INCREDIBLE INK Written and illustrated by Brianne Farley 32 pp. Candlewick Press. $16.99. (Picture book; ages 4 to 8) THE DAY THE CRAYONS QUIT By Drew Daywalt Illustrated by Oliver Jeffers 40 pp. Philomel Books. $17.99. (Picture book; ages 3 to 7) sFrom "The Day the Crayons Quit." Eureka!: "Ike's Incredible Ink." Dan Yaccarino's latest book is "Doug Unplugged."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 25, 2013]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Masterful picture-book biographer Winter (The Watcher, 2011) offers an elegant, accessible portrait of expressive artist Henri Matisse. She tackles his childhood, law career, and establishment as a painter of note in the first eight pages, using small, square-frame illustrations with text placed above and below. As an old man, Matisse becomes ill, and the book turns a stylistic corner, spending the balance of its pages exploring the changes in his circumstances and the subsequent development of his medium and his genius. Unable to paint, he begins cutting shapes from paper and dives into the process, allowing his shapes to grow with his imagination. And the book adapts in turn, the imagery now sprawling across pages, filling the space with rich color in exuberant compositions. At the end, Matisse falls into dreaming, joining his shapes in the heavens, and Winter wonders, Are some of the stars we see at night coming from Henri's scissors? Perhaps. With a gentle narrative dotted with quotes from the artist himself, luminous illustrations, and a warm, celebratory spirit, this exemplary picture-book biography delivers a clear, sensitive portrait of the whole man, story and soul alike. A brief author's note concludes.--Barthelmess, Thom Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
After quickly tracing French painter Matisse's journey to becoming an artist ("He was happy, and his paintings made people happy") and explaining how illness left him unable to paint at the end of his life, Winter (Kali's Song) describes his discovery of a medium less physically demanding than painting but just as expressive: painted paper and scissors. "Why didn't I think of it earlier?" he asks delightedly. Simple, folk-style paintings show Matisse in a wheelchair in a studio amid his collages; in a quiet visual cue, a plant with oversize leaves suggests inspiration for their big, organic shapes. He continues to create until his death, another moment Winter handles gracefully: "The rainbow of shapes cradled the old artist and carried him into the heavens." Old age can be fertile and useful, Winter implies; disability doesn't mean the end of creating, and triumph is possible where only sadness could have been foreseen. All of these messages lie obliquely in the text, but even readers who don't dig that deep will share Matisse's joy. Ages 5-8. Agent: Susan Cohen, Writers House. (Aug.)? (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 3-At age 72, following surgery for cancer, Henri Matisse was too weak to paint. During his convalescence at the seaside, he picked up scissors and began cutting shapes from painted paper. In his own words, "It seems to me that I am in a second life." Winter's picture-book biography focuses on that second life, neatly summarizing his childhood and career in the first eight pages: "He kept on painting, forgot about law, and left his small town to be an artist in Paris." Winter captures the joy that Matisse found in cut paper, both through her acrylic and cut-paper illustrations and through quotes from his letters. The images are evocative of his art, with bright colors and rounded shapes. The first pages, depicting his youth and adulthood, are deeply framed like museum art, then transition to full-page compositions when his life changes due to illness. The author addresses his death with a light touch: "Then one night, Matisse walked into his paper garden, and the rainbow of shapes cradled the old artist and carried him into the heavens," where perhaps he now uses his scissors to make the stars in the night sky. Libraries with demand for picture-book biographies and art history will want to add this well-done title to their collections.-Suzanne Myers Harold, Multnomah County Library System, Portland, OR (c) Copyright 2013. 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
In her latest picture book biography (see Barbara Bader's article "Persons of Interest," beginning on page 11), Winter focuses on Henri Matisse's later life, during which the painter took up collage. The book's opening pages feature a simple, sedate layout: brightly colored but rather quiet acrylics showing Matisse as a child and then creating famous early works are contained in neat square borders on cafe au lait pages. When he becomes so ill that "his paintings floated by in his dreams," the pages go to midnight blue as he -- and readers -- wonder: "would he ever have the energy to paint again?" Then bedridden Matisse discovers the magic he can make with scissors, and the book's design opens up; cut paper is integrated into the illustrations; and Winter begins to include quotes from the artist himself regarding this revelation ("My pleasure in cutting things out grows even greater. Why didn't I think of it earlier?"). With text that is straightforward and unflowery, Winter relies, successfully, on the strength of her own art to capture the essence of Matisse's. A brief author's note explains her specific interest in this portion of the artist's oeuvre. katrina hedeen (c) Copyright 2013. 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
In her extensive picture-bookbiography oeuvre, Winter has proven to be particularly attuned to selecting the just-right elements of her subjects' complex lives while making them both accessible to and readily understood by young children. Here she limns the major biographical details of Matisse's long life: A French law student recovering and on bed rest after an appendectomy is given a paint set; he discovers his true calling, abandons the law, moves to Paris and embarks on a long career as a member of the Fauvist movement. Many years later, once again bedridden and frail, he begins the final and perhaps most enduring stage of his work. Winter both describes and employs Matisse's signature, late-career technique of brilliantly colored, hand-painted, cut-paper compositions. She enlivens the simple text with liberal yet judicious quotes from Matisse's letters and comments from contemporaries. This is a beautifully designed book that will certainly connect with readers, although the closing spreads may be too poetically obscure for the intended school-age audience. Winter writes that at Matisse's death, "the rainbow of shapes cradled the old artist and carried him into the heavens." The book's final question, "Are some of the stars we see at night coming to us from Henri's scissors?" seems forced. This soaringly sentimental resolution notwithstanding, the book is a charming introduction to a widely reproduced, child-friendly artist, one that children will assuredly encounter and affirmingly embrace. (author's note) (Picture book/biography. 5-8)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
