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Everybody Paints! The Lives and Art of the Wyeth Family
By Susan Goldman Rubin
Chronicle Books
$16.99
ISBN: 978-0-8118-6984-3
Ages 9-12
On shelves February 4th

For years it was my pleasure to work in the New York Public Library’s Central Children’s Room, located in the Donnell Library. The Central Children’s Room was the crown jewel of children’s literature in the city, and amongst its many treasures (which included a parrot-headed umbrella owned by Mary Poppins/P.L. Travers and the original Winnie-the-Pooh toys) were N.C. Wyeth’s original paintings from the book Robin Hood. I might be mistaken, but I’m pretty sure we owned them all. Certainly we didn’t put them all on display, but a fair number of them were available for the public and they turned out to be quite a draw for the local illustrators. Since those days the Donnell has been sold and the paintings transferred to the main branch of NYPL where they now grace the walls of the President of the library’s office. If you would like to see them it is not out of the question, but it is also not as easy as it once was. I, for my part, haven’t seen them in years. With that in mind, I think it makes perfect sense why I was drawn to Susan Goldman Rubin’s latest artistic picture book biography Everybody Paints! Not content to tell merely the story of one famous painter, Rubin dares to encapsulate the lives of three generations, with a particular focus on one painter in each. N.C., Andrew, and Jamie are presented to kids here in a clear-cut way that honestly displays their very interesting work.

Meet the bronco buster. That’s one name you might give to N.C. Wyeth. Born to parents that thought he’d be better suited as a farmhand than as an artist, N.C. set about to prove himself. Before long he was apprenticed to the great Howard Pyle and became his star student. Wyeth became adept at cattle round-ups as well as painting scenes of action and adventure. His talents brought his lucrative illustration projects like Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Robin Hood. Along the way he sired talented offspring, each of whom had some kind of talent. Andrew Wyeth pursued his art with the same fervor as his dad, but while the fine art community had never officially accepted his father, Andrew was embraced almost immediately. In his footsteps followed Jamie, a painter who could work on everything from picture books to portraits of presidents. This is their story.

Writing a biography of the Wyeths for children isn’t as fraught with potential peril as writing a biography of other artists might be. Having cut her teeth on bios about Diego Rivera (Diego Rivera: An Artist for the People) and Andy Warhol (Andy Warhol: Pop Art Painter) the Wyeths must have struck Ms. Rubin as a true relief. This is not to say that there haven’t been rumors floating around them for years, but vague rumors are far easier to elide than numerous confirmed affairs and “The Factory”. The content is presented in a very nice, straightforward style. We meet each Wyeth in turn, and the narrative will slip from one to another without so much as a herk or a jerk. The sections are not particularly long. Indeed, the book itself is infinitely readable at just a scant 112 pages. That means that if a kid wants to do a bit of serious research they may need to find some additional books to cover the material more extensively. That said, Rubin provides the basic overview and allows the reader to fill in gaps on their own. Nothing wrong with that when you’re dealing with children’s book biographies.

It was a Kirkus review of this book that sniffed that this particular book is “undersized and overdesigned.” The “undersized” criticism strikes me as particularly silly, perhaps in light of the fact that as a librarian I’ve seen too many art books rejected by child readers because they were “too big” to comfortably carry home. I’m a New York City librarian, so kids in my town have to lug and tote every book they take from the library themselves. There is no helpful waiting car to dump the load into. With that in mind our little patrons become quite savvy in the ways of pick up and retrieval. Imagine, if you will, that you are attempting to woo a kid with the assignment to read a book about a famous artist into reading this book. I can attest that there’s nothing worse than being cut off mid-spiel by a child who points out, quite logically, that the book is “too big”. I mean there’s no comeback to that! So yes, it’s true that the images in this collection aren’t the size that they are in real life. But that is more than made up for when it comes to the sheer number of images present.

To the second criticism, that of being “overdesigned”, the book actually one in a series of artistic biographies done in a “gift book” style. Some of you may recall the rather gorgeous Sparky: The Life and Art of Charles Schulz that came out a couple years ago by Beverly Gherman. Like this book it wasn’t afraid to play around with an eclectic design. Lots of large fonts, different colored pages, and images, images, images. In this book Rubin skillfully alternates between photographs of her subjects and their families and their paintings. To an adult, I suppose the layout of this book might feel jarring but I’m quite fond of it. It kept me awake, allowed my eye to travel from text to image and back again freely, and best of all when Rubin mentions a famous photograph it’s right there for you to look at.

You see, one complaint I’ve heard fielded at artistic biographies is that they don’t contain enough images of their subject’s work. How are you supposed to care about someone if you can’t see what it is that they themselves cared about? When Ms. Rubin wrote Diego Rivera I adored it. Some librarians, however, wanted a lot more images. Full paintings would be described but never seen. One might point out that in an internet age it’s fairly easy to see pictures of things whenever you want to, but the point stands. A book about an artist should do its duty and give its subject proper due. With that in mind, Everybody Paints! fairly pops with pictures. I don’t know enough about the rights to reproduce painted images in the way Rubin presents them here. What I do know is that she’s done a stand up and cheer job of it. Nothing major feels like it’s missing.

In spite of the fact that there’s been a real push to promote great nonfiction books with kid readers, it can be a hard sell. Adults that are my age or older have a hard time remembering any particularly great books of nonfiction from when we were young (and no, the Childhood of Famous Americans series does NOT count). Few of us are aware that we’re in a golden age of great children’s informational titles. What Everybody Paints! does is typify this kind of book. It’s a hard subject that requires a deft hand. And with her abundance of experience in this particular area, Susan Goldman Rubin does her subjects proud. As beautiful as you would expect, and three times as fun as you might think to read.

On shelves February 4th.

Source: Final copy sent from publisher for review.

Like This? Then Try:

• Diego Rivera: An Artist for the People by Susan Goldman Rubin

• Chuck Close: Face Book by Chuck Close

• Sparky: The Life and Art of Charles Schulz by Beverly Gherman

Professional Reviews: Kirkus

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The Association of Jewish Libraries Convention took place last week in Pasadena. Four days packed with wonderful sessions, friends, and fun. My experiences being the chair of the Sydney Taylor Book Award Committee have been rewarding beyond measure. Here's a taste of this year's convention through my eyes:


My name tag!

Sydney Taylor Book Award Winners - Susan Goldman Rubin and Rob Sharenow

SharingChanukah Lights with Debbie Feder and Aimee Lurie

Sharing a smile with the lovely Susan Goldman Rubin

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Wideness and Wonder: The Life and Art of Georgia O'Keeffe Susan Goldman Rubin

I ended up reading this one in one sitting. I was just going to start it while having a coffee at the coffeeshop and then BAM! I turned into a table hog, as I just kept turning the pages until I turned the last one.

This not Rubin’s only Cybils nominee-- she also wrote the Bernstein biography Music Was It: Young Leonard Bernstein.

In Wideness and Wonder, Rubin writes a fascinating and engaging account of O’Keefe’s life, but also really gets across how many barriers she had to break in the art world by being a female and American -trained.

What really blew me away though, was the design. As one would hope from a biography about an artist, it’s amply illustrated with her work. What I especially appreciated is that it was work from her entire career-- not just the flowers and animal bones. I never knew about her Art Deco-style work, which I absolutely adored. In addition to O’Keefe’s work, there are several photographs of her and the people in her life. Going beyond that though, and into the actual book design, every page is a different color---purple, yellow, blue and often has a subtle design in paler tones. It’s subtle enough that I didn’t find it at all distracting.

A wonderful book about a fascinating person.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Music Was It: Young Leonard Bernstein Susan Goldman Rubin

This book doesn't really discuss why Bernstein was such a musical genius. It doesn't mention the fact that his melodies are modern and well, weird, and you'd think they should stay on the shelf for serious connesseurs of modern music, they instead have become standards of American cannon. (Don't believe me? Think about th opening in "Maria." It's a tritone. Traditional music doesn't use it because it's so hard to do correctly and sounds weird, and Bernstein goes and creates one of the greatest musical of all times just chock full of them.) It does, however, talk about his exhuberance and energy and how very rare it was to have a symphonic conductor who was American born and trained. Starting when Bernstein was a toddler and ending with his New York Phil conducting debut at the very very very young age of 25, Rubin tells the story of a boy for whom music was everything. His father didn't support his musical ideas (like most practical-minded parents, he worried there was no money in it and Lenny wouldn't be able to support himself of a family.)

The genius of the book is that Rubin makes Bernstein come alive in a way I've never seen before. She has a number of interviews and sources from the people Bernstein was closest to (including his little brother) that really gives us a glimpse of his life growing up that we tend not to see. Her writing style is engaging and accessible.

I like the fact that it also focuses heavily on his conducting-- not just his composing. I never really think of Bernstein as a conductor (although after reading this, I'm currently listening to his recording of Beethoven's 9th with the Bavarian Radio Symphony) but he was amazing at that, too.

I'm not sure this is the kind of book that kids will pick up on their own, but if they do, they'll be more than pleasantly surprised.


Book Provided by... my local library

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For years I have loved the music of Leonard Bernstein. Music he composed such as the opera Candide, the ballet Fancy Free, and the shows On the Town, West Side Story, thrill me. And when I hear a recording of Lenny conducting music by another composer like Mahler or Beethoven, I am deeply moved. I feel Lenny’s passion and it enhances my pleasure of the music.

This pleasure was something I wanted to bring to readers in Music Was It: Young Leonard Bernstein. I was astonished to learn that as a boy growing up in Boston, Lenny had to struggle to make a career in music despite his exceptional talent. His father, a Russian immigrant who had successfully established a beauty supply business, opposed the idea. Sam Bernstein, Lenny’s father, believed that it would be impossible for an American Jewish kid to break into the world of classical music, which in the 1930s and 1940s was dominated by Europeans. And he was right. Sam wanted Lenny to take over his beauty supply business. Or, at second best, become a rabbi.

Although Lenny loved his father and was greatly influenced by Judaism, he pursued his dream of a life in music. From the moment when he was ten-years-old and the family received a cast-off piano from Aunt Clara, Lenny knew that “music was 'it'.” “There was no question in my mind,” he recalled, “that my life was to be about music.”

With the encouragement of his mother, younger sister Shirley, supportive teachers and influential mentors, Lenny achieved his goal. The book ends with his triumphant conducting debut at Carnegie Hall when he was just twenty-five. A reporter asked Sam why he had ever objected to Lenny’s desire to be a musician, and Sam relied, “How could I know my son was going to grow up to be Leonard Bernstein?”

Researching and writing this book was a joy. During the process I had the marvelous opportunity to meet and interview two of Lenny’s children, Jamie and Alexander Bernstein. I also talked to Lenny’s brother Burton and his lifelong friend and one of his first piano students, Sid Ramin.

But reading about Lenny is incomplete without listening to his music. I tried to compile a discography for the book but had trouble because Lenny is one of the most recorded conductors in history. With the help of my wonderful edit

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For today's nonfiction offerings, I'm giving you a slew of books that are Cybils nominees. They're all under 100 pages, which I normally don't review, but they're Cybils books, so they get a pass.

Sacred Mountain: Everest Christine Taylor-Butler

Basically, this is a book that talks about Mount Everest and the people who live on and around it. Taylor-Butler tells of the expeditions to the top and the perils involved therein, but spends most of her time talking about life in Everest's shadow, particularly for the Sherpa people and their culture. Personally, I would have loved more information about life on the northern Tibetan/Chinese side of the mountain and how it's the same or different from life on the southern Nepalese side of the the mountain.

Beautifully laid out with great pictures and a lot of side bars and pull-out boxes, I especially appreciated Taylor-Butler's focus on how the Sherpa people and traces their initial interactions with foreign climbers who needed them to succeed while but looked down on them as backwards natives up through today, where they claim much of Everest's glory for themselves and are working to keep it a high-stakes tourist spot (good for the economy) while not letting too many people come and destroy their mountain and way of life.

Book provided by... the publisher, for Cybils consideration

The Vermeer Interviews: Conversations With Seven Works of Art Bob Raczka

A very interesting idea. Raczka interviews the subjects of seven paintings by Jan Vermeer. The people in the paintings tell of their lives, of what Dutch culture at the time of the painting, and how to read the painting, pointing out details of the painting that give clues to what's going on, and details that show why Vermeer was so good.

This is a really fascinating book that's going to be a quirky sell to kids. It's not one they're going to pick up on their own, but I think they'll really like it once they start reading it. It's getting them to read it that's going to take a stealthily guiding hand.

My one complaint is that, while the printing is high quality, there were times when areas we pointed out that had been painted over. While I'm sure these things are visible in the originals, I couldn't see most of them in the book. That might just be me, but it was frustrating.

Book provided by... the publisher, for Cybils consideration

The Anne Frank Case: Simon Wiesenthal's Search for the Truth Susan Goldman Rubin, illustrated by Bill Farnsworth

Simon Wiesenthal, a Holocaust survivor, made it his life's work to track down Nazis and bring them to justice. Despite the title, the book doesn't focus much on Anne Frank. Wiesenthal's search to find the man who arrested the Franks provides an interesting frame to tell of Wiesenthal's life and work, but his overall mission, and not that particular case, are the focus.

While I can't find information in the book itself, the illustrations look like oil paintings and are done in an almost impressionistic style. While I prefer photographs to illustrate nonfiction, I appreciate that Rubin was trying to tell this story like it was a story, and a unified illustration approach helps that.

There are photographs, as well as more biographical details, further reading (some of it even for kids!) and source notes in the back of the book.

An interesting look at what people did after the war to help deal with the affects of the Holocaust.

Book Provided by... my local library

Nelson Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom Abridged by Chris Van Wyk (original by Nelson Mandela), Illustrated by Paddy Bouma

This is a picture book version of Mandela's adult autobiography. The picture book version makes the material and Mandela's life accessible to 2nd-4th graders. It has a nice timeline in the back, as well as a glossary.

I have a few complaints about this book-- one is that it is fully illustrated with absolutely NO photographs. Not one! It's not like there aren't a million photos of Mandela out there! Not even one in the back matter? Really?

The book also doesn't explain the term "colored" in the South African context. In the US, colored is a term that meant African-American and we often see it in books for children about the Civil Rights Era. When explaining apartheid, it says "It classified every person in South Africa according to race, for example, as 'black,' 'colored,' or 'white.'" Later on it says "Thousands of colored, Indian, and white South Africans were against it [apartheid], too." (sorry, it's an unpaged book, so no page numbers.) It was confusing and even I had to look it up to see what it meant. (People who were of mixed race, but not "black enough" to be considered black under apartheid.)

Also, in editing the book for children, the reader fails to really grasp the full sense of what Mandela did, especially before being sent to prison. There's not a great sense of why Mandela is the hero he is, which is sad.

Book Provided by... my local library

Round up is over at Abby (the) librarian!

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

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I’ve been blogging about the Place of the Week for nearly two years now, choosing a new location every seven days that I knew little about but had caught my attention or that appeared in the news. In the last year global warming has become much more than another subject debated within academia; in fact its found its way into our language, popular culture, and even our shopping habits. As I thought about this while I tried to pick my first Place of the Year, I kept coming back to the very visible ways the Earth’s landscape has been altered by the phenomena. (more…)

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Devil’s Island

Coordinates: 5 16 N 52 34 W

Area: 34.6 acres (14 hectares)

Today, urban dwellers may yearn for the occasional retreat to a tropical paradise, but for about a century there were plenty of people who longed to escape from just such a place. Between 1852 and about 1953 this Atlantic island off the coast of French Guiana served as a penal colony intended for prisoners suffering from contagious diseases—leprosy in particular. (more…)

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