Jazz Age Josephine

Dancer, Singer, who's that, who?

Why, that's MISS Josephine Baker, to you!

This post is part of Nonfiction Monday 

hosted today by Gathering Books

Atheneum Books for Young Children

(Simon and Schuster)

(pub. 1.3.2012)  40 pages 

A True Tale with A Cherry On Top

A uthor: Jonah Winter

     and Illustrator:  Marjorie Priceman

C haracter: Josephine Baker

O verview from the jacket flap: 

      "She can Bunny Hug and Grizzly Bear. She can Turkey Trot and do the Charleston. 

       It's the 1920s, and the world is alive with the sounds of this new music called jazz. Everyone get up and dance! (Wait, not everyone.) 

       Josephine has all the moves, but she also has dark skin and some think that means she should stay in the shadows - or only play the clown. But that simply will not work for Miss Josephine. Instead she dances her way into big shows, onto big stages. She dances her way to New York and Paris. She dances her way out of poverty and into stardom..."

        

T antalizing taste: 

 "You see, the shack where she lived, 

        it didn't have no heat.

Things were sometimes so bad,

there wasn't nothin' to eat.

She slept on the floor,

newspapers for a sheet -

rats crawlin' all around,

a-nibblin' at her feet.

'Josephine,' her grandma said,

'I got a fairy tale for you.

           'Josephine, oh Josephine,

            this story's 'bout a girl like you.

Someday you're gonna be a princess -

you know what Granny says is true.'"

          

and something more: I was fascinated to learn more about Josephine Baker in Jonah Winter's Author's Note at the back of Jazz Age Josephine: "As her performing days were tapering off, Josephine adopted twelve children from around the world and called them the 'Rainbow Tribe.' Her commitment to racial integration did not stop here. In 1963, she spoke at the same civil rights convention in Washington, D.C., where the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. made his famous speech, 'I Have a Dream.'... During her funeral procession through Paris, more than 20,000 mourners lined the streets." Josephine overcome obstacles and injustices, and became the adored person her grandmother inspired her to be.

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Maxfield Parrish

Painter of Magical Make-Believe

This post is part of Nonfiction Monday 

hosted today by Books 4 Learning

Pelican Publishing

(pub. 9.28.2011)  32 pages 

A True Tale with A Cherry On Top

A uthor: Lois V. Harris

     

C haracter: Maxfield Parrish

O verview from the jacket flap: 

      "An extraordinarily gifted artist, Maxfield Parrish helped shape the Golden Age of illustration with a career lasting more than half a century... Parrish grew up painting at an easel and visiting Europe to study the Old Masters. His imaginative style and lively colors decorated books, advertisements, candy boxes, calendars, and cards.  By 1925, prints of his work hung in millions of homes all across America.
      This biography for children contains photographs of the artist and is illustrated with the colorful dreamlands he was known for creating."

T antalizing taste: 

      "The deep shades of blue he created became known as 'Parrish blue.' When asked how he made it, Maxfield said it 'is just ordinary blue you can buy around the corner, but what I put next to it is what makes it what it is.'"

and something more:   My favorite painting featured in Lois V. Harris' picture book biography, Maxfield Parrish - Painter of Magical Make-Believe, is "The Lantern Bearers" which highlights Maxfield Parrish's use of vivid blue contrasted with yellow.  I was interested to learn in the Credits at the book of the book that this painting is owned by the new Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas.

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Georgia In Hawaii

When Georgia O'Keefe Painted
What She Pleased


This post is part of Nonfiction Monday 

hosted today by The Nonfiction Detectives

Harcourt Children's Books (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

(pub. 3.20.2012)  40 pages 

A True Tale with A Cherry On Top

A uthor: Amy Novesky

     and Illustrator:  Yuyi Morales

C haracter: Georgia O'Keefe

O verview from the jacket flap: 

"Georgia O'Keeffe was famous for painting exactly what she wanted, whether flowers or skulls. Who would ever dare to tell Georgia what to paint? The Hawaiian Pineapple Company tried. Lucky for them, Georgia fell in love with Hawaii. There she painted the beloved green islands, vibrant flowers, feathered fishhooks, and the blue, blue sea. But did she paint what the Pineapple Company wanted most of all?"

T antalizing taste: 

           "And Georgia painted flowers!

         Bird of paradise and philodendron, foot-long heliconia and fragrant plumeria, torch ginger and silver cup, lotus and hibiscus.

         She painted a nana honua that she'd picked by the side of the road. It reminded Georgia of her favorite desert flower, the jimsonweed."

and something more: I had the pleasure of seeing an advance copy of this wonderful book, Georgia in Hawaii, when my writer friend Amy Novesky read another book she wrote about an artist, Me, Frida (Frida Kahlo) at SFMOMA's Family Day last summer.  It's such a thrill to now hold this exquisitely written and beautifully illustrated book. 

         When I recently read this book to my favorite group of second graders at Bacich School, we felt we could almost feel the soft tropical breezes infused with the fragrance of the Hawaiian flowers. Several students wanted to study the flowers illustrated by Yuyi Morales on the inside cover of the book. One girl commented that the vivid red heliconia appears in a Dr. Suess movie. When I asked the students what they learned about the famous artist, Georgia O'Keefe, a boy replied, "That she only painted what she wanted to paint." 

         The Author's Note quotes Georgia O'Keefe: "'If my painting is what I have to give back to the world for what the world has given to me ... these paintings are what I have to give ... for what three months in Hawaii gave to me.'" Thank you, Amy, for sharing Georgia's story with us and giving us this delightful lyrical picture book biography of a special time in the artist's life.

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Life in the Ocean

The Story of the Oceanographer Sylvia Earle

This post is part of Nonfiction Monday 

hosted today by Ana's Nonfiction Blog

Frances Foster Books (Farrar Straus Giroux)

(pub. 3.13.2012)  32 pages 

A True Tale with A Cherry On Top

A uthor and illustrator: Claire A. Nivola

     

C haracter: Sylvia Earle

O verview from the jacket flap: 

      "Sylvia Earle was a biologist and botanist long before she even knew what those words meant. As a child, she spent hours observing plant and animal life on her family's farm, but it was when they moved to Florida and Sylvia discovered the Gulf of Mexico in her backyard that she lost her heart to the ocean... Whether she's designing submersibles for exploration, living underwater for two weeks, or taking deepwater walks, Sylvia Earle has dedicated her life to learning more about, and urgently calling on all of us to protect, what she calls 'the blue heart of the planet...'" 

       

T antalizing taste: 

      "Pictures of whales, says Sylvia, make them look 'big and fat and ponderous and lumpy ... Whales are like swallows ... like otters ... They move in any direction. They swim upside down. They're vertical. They're every which way... They are sleek and elegant and gorgeous, among the most exquisite creatures on the planet. They move like ballerinas... Rollicking, frolicking creatures, doing all this wonderful dancing in the sea.'"

      Sylvia has even heard whales singing while she has been underwater, and, once, the force of the sound waves made her entire body vibrate and shake... [S]ound waves travel four times faster in water than in air, so whales can communicate across vast distances. Sylvia says that hearing their haunting and beautiful songs in the sea is like being inside the heart of an orchestra."

and something more:  Just the other week, I had the incredible opportunity to see a gray whale in the San Francisco Bay! My good friend, Julie, kindly called me, excitement bubbling over, to tell me that she had just spotted a whale from her window.  From the Tiburon boardwalk and from Julie's deck, we watched the whale spouting in the bay -- each new sighting of a sparkling spray of white or the sleek curve of the whale's back elicited more "ohs and ahs" from us and the others out enjoying the rare sight. And then, we were rewarded with a sighting of the whale's spectacular tale whooshing up through the water, reminding me of a very large moustache.  And, in Claire Nivola's words, I could imagine the whale "rollicking, frolicking ... dancing in the sea." Just so amazing to think of that enormous creature right there out in the water.  

          The San Francisco Chronicle quoted Mary Jane Schramm, spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, explaining that the gray whales are currently migrating from Baja California to Arctic waters.  She said that the strong currents in the strait between Angel Island and Tiburon appeals to the whales, and that often the whales detour in the bay during their migration.  However, she also said that climate change may also be a factor -- the shrinking ice caps in the Arctic may be changing the whales' feeding grounds and patterns.  And, of course, that's worrisome. 

         Claire Nivola's delicate, detailed illustrations perfectly complement her thought-provoking text.  Her inspiring Author's Note explains that "Sylvia Earle would like us all to delight as much as she does in the underwater world, in the ingenuity and variety of our fellow creatures who dwell there. But she has also seen close-up how the ocean is suffering at our hands. She believes it is our ignorance of what is at stake that is in large part to blame... [Sylvia wrote], 'Looking into the eyes of a wild dolphin - who is looking into mine - inspires me to learn everything I can about them and do everything I can to take care of them ... You can't care if you don't know.'" And that's just why a book such as Life in the Ocean is so important.

         

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Just Behave, Pablo Picasso!

This post is part of Nonfiction Monday 

hosted today by Rasco From RIF

Arthur A. Levine (Scholastic)

(pub. 2.1.2012)  48 pages 

A True Tale with A Cherry On Top

A uthor: Jonah Winter

     and Illustrator: Kevin Hawkes

C haracter: Pablo Picasso

O verview from the jacket flap: 

         "Pablo Picasso may have been a world-famous artist, but that doesn't mean no one ever called his artwork 'ugly.' 

           Any kid who's been told what to draw, or heard mean things about something they made, will relate to this story about how Pablo faced down his critics and made something truly original.

           Inspiring, playful, brilliant - that was Picasso! They told him 'Just behave ...' And he almost never listened!'

     

T antalizing taste: 

     "... All anyone wants is for him to keep painting the same old picture, over and over. Well, guess what? He doesn't want to, he doesn't have to, and he's not going to!  HAH!

       ... 'But Pablo,' says a fellow artist, 'your new painting doesn't look real.'

           'Everything you can imagine,' says Pablo, 'is real.'

           And sure enough, the crazy shapes and images you see when you close your eyes are very much a part of you, just as real as what you see with open eyes."

and something more: What a great idea -- to make Pablo Picasso a superhero! Artists have always been heroes in my mind. I love Kevin Hawke's illustration of Pablo as he literally "bursts through the canvas [of a peaceful, lovely landscape painting], paintbrush in hand, ready to paint something fresh and new." 

      I'm curious about Jonah Winter's dedication in Just Behave, Pablo Picasso: "For Sofia Corporan and her students (past, present, and future)"  Perhaps his art teacher at some point?

    

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