Vincent's Starry Night and Other Stories: A Children's History of Art perfectly pairs writer, art historian and radio broadcaster Michael Bird with the London based Laurence King Publishing, one of the world's leading publishers of books on the creative arts, acclaimed for their inventiveness, beautiful design and authoritative texts. From a cave in Germany 40,000 years ago to 21st century artist Ai Weiwei, Bird divides the history of art into eight periods, traveling the world from Cambodia to Egypt, Europe, China and New York City, featuring the stories of more than 68 artists. The photographed art of featured artists is paired with illustrations by Kate Evans that help tell the stories that Bird uses to tell the stories of the art and the artists.
Vincent's Starry Night and Other Stories: A Child's History of Art can be read from cover to cover, the narrative is so entertaining and engaging. I could easily see this book being bedtime reading for many families. After all, art is a form of visual story telling. Bird has a way, sometimes playful, of putting the reader in the room with the artist. Chapter 33, which features Diego Velázquez and his 1656 painting The Maids of Honor, begins, "'Boo!' Diego Velázquez jumps. His brush leaves a black smudge on his forehead - that is, the forehead of his own portrait, which he is painting just here, to the side of his enormous painting of the royal family. He turns to see five faces looking up at him." The little Princess Margarita Teresa and her maids of honor, along with their companions, the dwarfs Maria and Nicolas. In the part Revolution! 1750 - 1860, Bird puts readers on the dangerous streets of Paris when Jacques-Louis David learns of the murder of his friend Marat and how he comes to compose his famous portrait of the radical journalist and Revolutionary politician. From David, we find Goya in Spain and his decision to paint the violence, suffering, and helplessness of his people amidst the chaos of the time.
Occasional maps place the artists and their art as well as give a feel for the time period. His narratives also help make sense of some modern art, the meaning and important of which might escape many of us. Chapter 54 finds Marcel Duchamp, sitting on a park bench in New York City as World War I raged on, reading a letter from his sister, a nurse in Paris. She is cleaning out his studio and he wonders what she has done with his piece, Bicycle Wheel. Interestingly, the original was lost in 1913 and what we see today are replicas. The rest of Duchamp's story about what he thinks defines art and the ways in which his ideas challenge those of most others. Vincent's Starry Night and Other Stories: A Children's History of Art ends with Ai Weiwei and his Sunflower Seeds installation. For his final story, Bird imagines a brother and sister visiting the work in 2011. Told not to touch the porcelain seeds by a guard, the older sister decides to research the artist and make her own seed. The story ends with a Google search and a view of Weiwei on CCTV as he opens the front gates of his home in Beijing, where he is still on house arrest. A poignant ending to a marvelous book that should sit on the shelf of every child's room. If you take nothing else away from Vincent's Starry Night and Other Stories: A Children's History of Art, even if we don't understand a work of art, ultimately art helps us understand what it means to be human.
Source: Review Copy
Laura Marx Fitzgerald says that her two favorite books (which also happen to be my two childhood favorites) are The Westing Game and From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. This love and appreciation shines through when you read either of her two books. Marx debuted in 2014 with Under the Egg, a mystery novel that combined a treasure hunt with a work of art, World War II and the dying words of a grandfather to his granddaughter. With The Gallery, Marx continues to weave art and mystery, this time setting her story in the past.
It's 1928 in New York City and Martha O'Doyle has been kicked out of Catholic school for faking "lady complaints" one time too many and asking Sister Ignatius why Eve was punished for wanting knowledge when, in fact, isn't that what we're all "sent here to do? Learn things?" Martha is a girl who notices the world around her and finds ways to move about in it and also a girl who isn't afraid to ask questions. This makes her perfectly suited to rescue the crazy woman who is being held in the attic of the 5th Avenue mansion of Mr. J. Archer Sewell, publisher of the Daily Standard.
Marx does a fantastic job of layering historical events and characters into her story, from Prohibition to the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti to Yellow Journalism and the race for president between Herbert Hoover and Al Smith. This definitely adds a richness to the novel, as well as sense of tarnish starting to show on the waning Gilded Age, but my favorite thread in The Gallery is the story that Marx tells using real works of art. Martha story begins with a discussion of knowledge and her being kicked out of school. Her mother, the head housekeeper at Mr. Sewell's 5th Avenue mansion, puts her to work as a scullery maid and Martha's real education begins.
Martha is intrigued by the crazy woman, the former Rose Pritchard, now Mrs. J. Archer Sewell, with a guard sleeping outside her door, and her art collection, which she keeps locked in her room with her instead of the gallery inside the mansion where it once was hung. When Martha forgets to put the "special sugar" that Mr. Sewell acquires specially for Rose, on her evening porridge and (coincidentally?) Rose has an outburst, Martha is removed from her kitchen duties and sent to clean the house, where she has more time to talk to Alphonse, the footman of indeterminate European origin but rich with knowledge of languages, mythology and art history. As Martha learns more about the singular painting (which can change at any moment) that Rose decides to let leave her room and hang on the wall of the mansion, she realizes that Rose is sending a message with each painting, a message Martha is determined to decode.
The Gallery is a story that is populated with fascinating female characters. Martha's mother is struggling to support Martha and her twin sons while her errant, alcoholic husband is on the road performing his vaudeville act with two skeletons he won in a bet. She is also fiercely proud of the job she does keeping the mansion running and the "teamwork" that Mr. Sewell speaks of with his staff. She lets Martha know that, back in Ireland, she could never have risen to this position and had the opportunity be treated as an (almost) equal by the master of the house. And, just when you think that Ma will be too enchanted by Mr. Sewell and his false flattery to do the right thing, she suprises you. Then there is Rose, the wild Rose who rebelled against her father's wealth and sense of propriety, going undercover to work in one of his factories, traveling the world by cargo ship and joining union picket lines. Meanwhile, she also collected artwork by Picasso, Rosetti, Courbet, Rembrandt, Caravaggio and Gentileschi. Sometimes, Martha herself seems to pale in comparison, but her combination of naiveté and street smarts make her the perfect protagonist.
Source: Review Copy & Purchased Audio Book
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William and the Missing Masterpiece is the second picture book from Helen Hanckocks. Her first book, Penguin in Peril, was the biggest selling picture book in the UK last year! Hancocks has a fantastic, wry sense of humor that expresses itself perfectly through her cat and penguin main characters as well as the plots and illustrations of her books. Crime seems to be a theme in Hancocks's
