Review by Booklist Review
This first in a series will delight some fans of Handler and Kalman's Printz Honor Book Why We Broke Up (2011), but it may leave others scratching their heads. Serious and humorous historical photographs of girls and women, drawn from the vernacular collection of the Museum of Modern Art, are presented with enough white space to evoke an exhibit. Kalman supplements the mostly black-and-white, anonymous, amateur snapshots with colorful paintings inspired by the photographs. Handler adds alternately wry, pithy, poignant and always succinct commentary to most spreads, inviting readers to ponder the people and scenes as well as their own family photos. Is this book a curiosity? An invitation to creative writing or art? Maybe even a call to action? Stand for something, stand for something! writes Handler. Otherwise what do you stand for, why are you even standing? Ultimately the best audience may be MoMA visitors hoping to extend the existential feeling of a museum visit, and who might want to gift it along with their own vintage family photo of people on lawns. So, where do you stand?--Dobrez, Cindy Copyright 2014 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Handler and Kalman (Why We Broke Up) explore photographs held by the Museum of Modern Art, a selection of mostly b&w vintage snapshots of young women posing on lawns. The girls look decorative, awkward, sometimes grim (like the woman in the grass skirt in front of bare winter trees), sometimes hilarious (a pair of fashionably shod legs stick out of a hedge). Handler's commentary wanders between the voices of the subjects ("My whole life I have not known where to put my hands") and that of a wise, older-brotherish commentator ("You don't have to be self-conscious. We're all fools"). Kalman contributes her own inimitable paintings: a girl in a dance costume flanked by two terriers, a jaunty woman perched on a gate. Handler captures the essential paradox of the photograph as historical record: "None of this is there, not anymore. And yet we are still standing." There's a marked insider/outsider feel to the project, first in a planned collaborative series between Handler, Kalman, and the museum; those familiar with the Handler/Kalman sensibility will be delighted, while those not in the know may find it baffling. Ages 10-up. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 7 Up-Vernacular photography is, as this book describes, photographs taken without artistic ambition. That is what a traditional snapshot is, or in this age of Instagram and digital photography, what it was. Who snapped the photos is unknown. The people and places are long gone, but these photographs of girls standing on lawns remain. Found, anonymous, and removed from their original context, these snapshots have now been given a new life. With text by Handler and paintings by Kalman based on snapshots from collection of the Museum of Modern Art, this is a short, beautiful, and nostalgic book. The spare text ponders the matter-of-factness depicted in the snapshots and the occasional colorful paintings are as playful as the original black-and-white source material. A girl with her arms awkwardly crossed is accompanied by the statement "My whole life I have not known where to put my hands." Another photo of a girl standing on a sidewalk instead of the nearby lawn is accompanied by the answer to the obvious but unasked question, "Because I didn't want to ruin my shoes, is why." The minimal text has the rhythm and simplicity of a children's book, but there is a thought-provoking complexity present that will appeal to teens and adults. This title can also help to inspire creativity, as the idea of using found photographs as the basis for a narrative provides endless possibilities for young adults, teachers, and programming librarians.-Billy Parrott, Mid-Manhattan Library, NYPL (c) Copyright 2014. 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
This odd little volume unites archival photographs from the Museum of Modern Art with Kalman's paintings and Handler's text, thematically centered on images of girls and women standing outdoors. The text reflects on the past and speculates about the circumstances of each image, producing unique commentary on the use of girls as decorative objects. A curator's note promises future collaborations. Index of photos. (c) Copyright 2014. 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
This trim, clothbound first in a series from Kalman and Handler for the Museum of Modern Art offers an intriguing painting-and-prose response to a selection of photographs of, as the title indicates, girls and young women standing on lawns.The 42 black-and-white photographs presented here are unremarkable at first glance. Gifts to the museum from a handful of donors, including Kalman, they represent the work of mostly amateur photographers from 1910 to 1955. Handler's droll, laconic prose poem complements the one-dimensional nature of these images; a few words accompanying each invite readers to consider that someone in particular is standing in each photograph: "Keep track of this. / You will not remember / every place you have stood." The combination of lawns, "girls" and posing for the camera seems to speak of a particular place, demographic and time. All are affecting, artless and sometimes poignant in their anonymity, but only two depict subjects who are not white: a young black girl standing with the only boy in these images, perhaps her younger brother; a young black woman in another. Kalman reinterprets 10 images in her energetic and inimitable fauve-esque palette; the unique charm of her paintings calls attention to the way the camera captures both what is intended andsomething else. The MoMA's curator of photography offers a note on a brief history of home photography and provides a description ("vernacular photography") for the genre.Terrific appetizer for discussion. (Poetry. 8 up) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
