Synopses & Reviews
This long-awaited companion to Jonah Winter's acclaimed DIEGO features the paintings of young Spanish artist, Ana Juan. This stunning picture book is the perfect gift for art enthusiasts of all ages.
When her mother was worn out from caring for her five sisters, her father gave her lessons in brushwork and color. When polio kept her bedridden for nine months, drawing saved her from boredom. When a bus accident left her in unimaginable agony, her paintings expressed her pain and depression - and eventually, her joys and her loves. Over and over again, Frida Kahlo turned the challenges of her life into art. Now Jonah Winter and Ana Juan have drawn on both the art and the life to create a playful, insightful tribute to one of the twentieth century's most influential artists. Viva Frida!
Review
Praise for DIEGO (1991):
"An accessible picture book about the life and work of Diego Rivera sounds like an oxymoron, but Winter . . . succeed[s] beyond belief. . . . The last pictures show him as a young man, perched on his scaffolding, brushes in hand, beckoning viewers on with his ardent glance. Readers will wish they could follow."
-- School Library Journal
"An excellent beginning biography."
-- Kirkus
* One of The Ruminator Review's 100 Best Children's Books of the Twentieth Century
* A Reading Rainbow Review book
* A 1991 Parents' Choice Award Honor winner
Praise for FAIR BALL! (1997):
Certain to be a hit with kids who take baseball history seriously, Winter's . . . handsome volume devotes a spread each to 14 stars of the Negro Leagues. Balancing stats with engaging trivia and anecdotes, the author will open readers' eyes to the injustices of segregated baseball. . . . This picture book [will] help set some records straight.
-- Publishers Weekly
A good, highly accessible introduction to a group of athletes who deserve to be as well known as their white counterparts.
-- School Library Journal
Praise for FRIDA
Winter, who brought the Mexican muralist vividly to life in Diego, focuses on Diego Rivera's bride, Frida Kahlo--an accomplished artist in her own right--in this striking picture book-biography. With a spare narrative more akin to poetry than prose, the author touches on important events in his subject's childhood--Frida's loneliness and the polio that kept her bedridden for months, as well as a bus accident, at age 18, that nearly killed h
er. He then shows how, each time, art helped her to transcend her injuries ("She turns her pain into something beautiful") and to unleash her magically surreal vision of the world in paintings ("In museums, people still look at them and weep and sigh and smile"). Juan, a Spanish fine artist and New Yorker cover artist making her children's book debut, creates artwork bursting with saturated color and infused with Mexican folk art motifs that also influenced Frida's own style. Floating figures, fantastical creatures and celestial bodies with human features cavort across the pages. Ana transforms Frida herself from a solemn, moon-faced child with uncompromising eyebrows (her well-known physical trait) to a woman whose gaunt features hint at both strength and inner struggle. One particularly breathtaking image shows the artist floating against a night sky, eyes closed and arms crossed on her chest in a death pose, held in the grip of a tree's thorny, gnarled branches ("Her body will hurt, always"). An outstanding introduction to an influential artist.
--Publishers Weekly, Dec. 10th 2001, starred review
A picture-homage to the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, whose indomitable spirit has become a reverend icon for struggling women artists. The truncated text outlines her life in a simplistic style, relating her childhood illness and the almost-fatal school bus accident that left her in constant physical pain. It was her painting that saved her, becoming her imaginary friend. Instead of crying, she painted pictures of herself crying. The account ends with a description of her paintings as "exvotos"; "magical scenes with words at the bottom, scenes of accidents with angels coming to the rescue. They are prayers for people who are sick." Neither her marriage to Diego Rivera nor her death is included. Like Kahlo's art, the illustrations are strikingly stylized. Done in acrylics and wax, they convey a surrealistic sensibility, using six traditional Mexican characters as a motif (e.g., skeleton, devil, jaguar) and portraying them as Kahlo's companions. The artwork lends an air of theatricality (her infa
Review
"A visual tour de force...Arty, amusing and exceedingly cleve."--Kirkus "Beckoning, buoyant...brilliant."--School Library Journal, starred review "Unexpected design elements, notably reversible images printed on transparent pages, surprise readers with clever illusions and artistic allusions...Rather than magnify surrealism's sinister edge, Johnson focuses on its energy and borrows that exuberance for his own see-through pages."--Publishers Weekly, starred review
Synopsis
Masterful artist D.B. Johnson captures the famous surrealist painter Magritte by telling the story of his mischievous hat! In this playful and innovative romp, readers can alter the artwork with four transparent pages, adding to the surrealism and whimsy of the experience!and#160;
Synopsis
"Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see." and#8212;Rene Magritte
D.B. Johnson writes andand#160;illustrates the surreal story of famous surrealist painter Rene Magritte and his very mysterious (and mischievous!) hat. While the art reflects some of Magritte's own work, the text sets readers on a fun and accessible path to learning about the simpler concepts behind Mr. Magritte's work.
This delightful picture book captures the playfulness and the wonderment of surrealist art. Four transparent pages add yet another level of surrealism to the illustrations as pictures can be altered with the turn of a page.
About the Author
Jonah Winter has written many exciting picture book biographies for children, with subjects that include Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Barack Obama, and Dizzy Gillespie. He lives in Pittsburgh, PA.
Ana Juan illustrated FRIDA, Jonah Winter's picture book biography of Frida Kahlo, which was an ALA Notable Book and received an Americas Honor Award. She also received the Ezra Jack Keats award for THE NIGHT EATER, her first book as author-illustrator. She lives in Madrid, Spain.