Available:*
Library | Collection | Collection | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... Clovis Branch Library (Fresno Co.) | Searching... Unknown | Children's Non-Fiction Area | 759.4 MAC | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Coalinga District Library (Coalinga-Huron) | Searching... Unknown | Juvenile Non-Fiction | J 759.4 MAC | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Fig Garden Branch (Fresno Co.) | Searching... Unknown | Children's Non-Fiction Area | 759.4 MAC | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Fresno Central Library (Fresno Co.) | Searching... Unknown | Children's Non-Fiction Area | 759.4 MAC | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Woodward Park Library (Fresno Co.) | Searching... Unknown | Children's Non-Fiction Area | 759.4 MAC | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
If you were a boy named Henri Matisse who lived in a dreary town in northern France, what would your life be like? Would it be full of color and art? Full of lines and dancing figures?
Find out in this beautiful, unusual picture book about one of the world's most famous and influential artists by acclaimed author and Newbery Medal-winning Patricia MacLachlan and innovative illustrator Hadley Hooper.
A Neal Porter Book
Author Notes
Patricia MacLachlan (1938-2022) was the award-winning author of many novels for children, including the Newbery Medal and Scott O'Dell Award-winning Sarah, Plain and Tall , which was adapted into a Hallmark television movie starring Glenn Close and Christopher Walken. She co-wrote the teleplay for the film as well as for two sequels, Skylark and Sarah, Plain and Tall: Winter's End , based on her novels.
Honored with a Christopher Award and a National Humanities Medal among many others, MacLachlan was also the author of Baby , Waiting for the Magic , The Truth of Me , and the picture books Someone Like Me (illustrated by Chris Sheban), and The Iridescence of Birds: A Book About Henri Matisse (illustrated by Hadley Hooper).
Hadley Hooper works as an editorial illustrator for numerous magazines and newspapers. In 2011 she illustrated Here Come the Girl Scouts! by Shana Corey. The Iridescence of Birds is her second picture book and first for Roaring Brook Press. She lives in Denver, Colorado.
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Starred Review. In one long, singing sentence (and a briefer second one that's no less lyrical), MacLachlan (Snowflakes Fall) takes what's known of Matisse's upbringing and shows how naturally it leads into a life as an artist. "If you were a boy named Henri Matisse who lived/ in a dreary town in Northern France where the skies were gray," she starts, as Hooper (Here Come the Girl Scouts!) draws a bundled-up boy crossing a village square in the wintry dusk. As MacLachlan shows how Matisse's mother brought color into her son's life, Hooper's woodcutlike images recall Matisse's organic forms and brilliant hues while preserving her own style. Small Henri feeds pigeons, "Watching... their colors that changed with the light... That your mother called iridescence." On the next page, the boy stands opposite the man Matisse, who holds a palette. "Would it be a surprise that you became/ A fine painter who painted/ Light/ and Movement/ And the iridescence of birds?" It's a sumptuous meditation on the way artists see and feel, one that possesses an iridescence of its own. Ages 4-8. Author's agent: Rubin Pfeffer, Rubin Pfeffer Content LLC. Illustrator's agent: Marlena Agency. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
"If you were a boy named Henri Matisse who lived / in a dreary town" Thus begins this speculative exploration of the painter's early encounters with color, worded as a book-length query. It's his mother who brightens Henri's gray surroundings ("Painted plates to hang on the wallsshe let you mix the colors"), brings him fruits and flowers to arrange, and swathes a room in red rugs. Most inspiring are the changeable colors of pigeons (given to Henri by his father). The brief text culminates with a second question: "Would it be a surprise that you became / A fine painter who painted / Light / and / Movement / And the iridescence of birds?" While MacLachlan addresses these mind-opening thoughts to the reader, Hooper visualizes what might have influenced the artist-to-be. Using relief prints and digital techniques with a decisive and economical rough-edged black line and colors that echo Matisse's evolving palette, Hooper sets the happily involved small boy amongst images that become bolder and brighter as the book progresses while fluidly incorporating the painter's own imagery. It's a spacious and beautiful book, as much a lesson for adults on visual enrichment and nurturing a creative spirit as an introductory biography for children. Back matter comprises notes by both author and illustrator and a list of four biographies for children. joanna rudge long (c) Copyright 2014. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Could an essential, spirited picture book capture the brightness of a childhood that inspired a lifetime of genius? In two long, lyrical sentences, MacLachlan wonders about the early years of Henri Matisse, who grew up in a cold, gray city in northern France and was warmed by the colors of the paints, fabrics, and birds that surrounded him. Posing her thoughts as questions, MacLachlan distills Matisse's first experiences, assembling them in rough detail to communicate their emotional impact, much like the Fauvist master her subject became. Hooper's vivid block-print illustrations vibrate and hum, echoing Matisse's lively sense of dynamic composition and brilliant color. In expansive spreads that fill the pages, she shows us a boy who thrilled to his environs, especially their hues, patterns, and iridescence. A central spread has young Henri climbing a ladder on the left while his grown self stands on the opposite side, demonstrating inspiration that has been realized. Thereafter, the child and adult Matisse occupy the pages together, sharing the space, now filled with the artist's iconic imagery, and fulfilling their communal promise. Endnotes by the author and illustrator illuminate the depth and specificity of their research and suggest further reading.--Barthelmess, Thom Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
The story of how Matisse came up with the ideas behind his cutouts (currently at MoMA in a rapturously reviewed show) makes for an ingenious picture book. As Amodeo's collaged paper figure of the artist cuts out birds and then adds other objects, we see how shape creates feelings and memories. When he adds color, an entire personal world comes into being. Friedman's spare text hits its marks perfectly, and foldout pages of Matisse cutouts provide an extra hit of happiness. THE IRIDESCENCE OF BIRDS: A Book About Henri Matisse By Patricia MacLachlan. Illustrated by Hadley Hooper. 38 pp. Neal Porter/Roaring Brook. $17.99. (Picture book; ages 4 to 8) Matisse once said that he got his sense of color from his mother. MacLachlan runs with that notion, inviting readers to picture themselves as a boy in a "dreary" town in northern France whose days were brightened by his mother's paints, fruits, flowers and rugs. The little boy gets to visit a silk mill, and he raises pigeons, appreciating the "iridescence" that his mother points out. At the book's close, he watches his grownup self at the easel. Hooper's illustrations wonderfully evoke Matisse's palette and style with a dappled beauty all their own. MR. CORNELL'S DREAM boxes Written and illustrated by Jeanette Winter. 32 pp. Beach Lane. $17.99. (Picture book; ages 4 to 8) That reclusive man living in Queens with his mother and brother was the artist Joseph Cornell, who liked to share his miniature-filled boxes with the neighborhood children. Winter tells her readers that if they'd lived near Mr. Cornell, they might have seen him "through the window, working in the dim light" - and been invited to a special show he gave just for children. It's a lovely tribute to Cornell's inventiveness, and a reminder to give our own neighborhood eccentrics their due. EDWARD HOPPER PAINTS HIS WORLD By Robert Burleigh. Illustrated by Wendell Minor. 32 pp. Christy Ottaviano/Holt. $17.99. (Picture book; ages 5 to 9) As a boy, Hopper wrote "Would be Artist" beneath his name on his pencil box, and Burleigh makes the shy painter understandable to any child with a serious, solitary passion. We follow Hopper into adulthood as he devotes himself to finding "what other artists didn't paint." Minor's illustrations capture the profoundly wistful essence of both Hopper himself and his most famous paintings. In pages that move between 20th-century New York City and Cape Cod, we see how Hopper's singular vision tied together his two beloved places. STAND THERE! SHE SHOUTED: The Invincible Photographer Julia Margaret Cameron By Susan Goldman Rubin. Illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline. 61 pp. Candlewick. $16.99. (Middle grade; ages 8 to 14) Richly illustrated with Cameron's own photos and drawings of her life by Ibatoulline, this biography takes an admiring but playful approach to the pioneering British photographer. Rubin shows how the ethereal beauty of her portraits was the result of her ruthless pursuit of aesthetic effects - and of children and celebrities to model for her, "captives" who were often forced to sit miserably still for hours. Especially inspiring is the way the book nonchalantly presents the flow between Cameron's work and her family life; her husband and six children come across as good-humored supporters and participants. ONLINE A slide show of this week's illustrated books at nytimes.com/books.
School Library Journal Review
Gr 1-4-This richly textured picture book looks at Henri Matisse's inspiration as a young boy, beginning with a spread depicting the gray, clammy French village in which he grew up. But while it is cold and damp outside, Matisse's mother fills the interior of their home with light through pattern and color. She paints natural scenes on plates, allows her son to mix and experiment with paint, and covers every possible surface with color. They are surrounded by their art. This look at Matisse's creativity and artistic process is strong and unusual for several reasons. Maclachlan concentrates on Matisse's mother and her influence on his eventual career. Her poetic text doesn't give the specific details of the man's life, but readers come away with a real sense of his art. Hooper's art, a combination of relief printmaking and digital techniques, expands readers' understanding of the text. They have strong solid lines, contrasting with the wide range of pastel colors. Hooper isn't derivative of Matisse's style but rather takes his tools and creates something new. On one spread, the background features a piece of Matisse's art; careful viewers will notice the artist in the foreground, growing from a boy into a man. The book gives off a creative energy that readers of all ages will find fulfilling. The simplicity of the text makes this book appropriate to use as a springboard to Matisse's work for even the very young. A poetic look at creativity, both natural and nurtured.-Susan E. Murray, formerly at Glendale Public Library, AZ (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
If indeed the "child is father to the man," Newbery medalist MacLachlan's poetic, careful and concentrated text captures the essence of Matisse's childhood experiences and draws powerful parallels with his later life and work. In her second picture book, Hooper (Here Come the Girl Scouts, by Shana Corey, 2012) employs a relief-print process with digital enhancement, art that is a perfect match for the simple story's vivid imagery. Effective page turns and the accretion of detail in both text and illustration take readers on a journey from perennially overcast northern France to the patterned interiors and lush exoticism of Matisse's Provence while demonstrating the artistic beginnings of his fauvist palette. It modulates from spread to spread, from the "dreary town in northern France" where the skies and streets are gray, through the exciting, paint-filled pots of color in Matisse's mother's china-painting studio and the oranges and golds of fruit and flowers from the markets to the many shades of reds in the rugs his mother put on the walls and floors of their house. The title springs from Matisse's love of pigeons. He was fascinated by their "sharp eyes" and "red feet." And he particularly loved watching their colors change as they movedthe titular "iridescence." Raising pigeons, it seems, was the perfect pastime for this quiet, color-loving boy who would become a brilliant painter. Glorious. (biographical note, artist's note, further reading) (Picture book/biography. 4-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.