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Summary
Summary
"Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see." --Rene Magritte
D.B. Johnson writes and 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.
Author Notes
D. B. Johnson has been a freelance illustrator for more than twenty years, during which time
he has drawn upon the influence and thoughts of philosophers and artists such as Henry David
Thoreau, M. C. Escher, and René Magritte to create his own masterpieces. D. B. Johnson and his
wife, Linda, live in New Hampshire. Visit his website at www.dbjohnsonart.com .
Reviews (6)
School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 4-"One bright day in the dark of night, the painter Magritte saw a marvelous hat in a store window." So begins this playful introduction to the style and subjects of the Belgian surrealist. Just as Johnson invited children into Thoreau's world in the "Henry" books by employing a bear to enact slices of the philosopher's life, here he casts a dog in the starring role. The bowler hat floats above the canine's head, infusing him with newfound energy, confidence, and ability. The art flows until the painter becomes overly absorbed in his work and attempts to control the bowler's impetuous personality. When the hat flees, the hunt begins. Early-20th-century Paris is the setting for parodies of many famous paintings, from "This Is Not a Pipe" ("hat" is substituted for "pipe," and it functions as a fountain) to the iconic picture of a landscape simultaneously covering the window and merging with the scene outside. References to Magritte's visual impossibilities and details are woven throughout; the illusions are further enhanced through the occasional use of cellophane pages that cleverly function on both sides. The artist's fascination with the limits of perception and two-dimensional representation provides mind-boggling images that children will relish. Johnson's additional layer of a hide-and-seek game and the inclusion of his own tricks offer more reasons to look closely. An author's note gives a brief context. Moving back and forth between this book and Magritte's art would be instructive and enjoyable for puzzle enthusiasts of any age. Beckoning, buoyant.brilliant.-Wendy Lukehart, Washington DC Public Library (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Johnson follows Palazzo Inverso, his topsy-turvy homage to M.C. Escher, with a delightful salute to another mind- bender, Belgian surrealist painter Rene Magritte. Unexpected design elements, notably reversible images printed on transparent pages, surprise readers with clever illusions and artistic allusions: an arched gateway becomes an under-the-umbrella downpour with a page turn. "One bright day in the dark of night," Magritte-a sophisticated gray dog with smooth black hair, a la Magritte's self-portraits-purchases a gravity-defying bowler hat. Like a playful pet, the strange chapeau hovers above his head and loves "pretending to blow away." As Magritte indulges its games, he finds painterly inspiration, but when he tells it to behave, it rockets out a window. The painter chases the hat through Parisian streets, passing enigmatic imagery from his canvases: blue skies, dense objects that hang weightless, solid surfaces revealed to be two-dimensional. Presumably to avoid tobacco, "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" does not appear, but cursive lettering ("This is not a hat") lines a hat-shaped fountain. Rather than magnify surrealism's sinister edge, Johnson focuses on its energy and borrows that exuberance for his own see-through pages. Ages 4-8. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
After purchasing a bowler hat, artist Magritte (here a dog in a suit) finds that it has a mind of its own: it floats, hides, etc., inspiring the painter's best work. An author's note on the real Reni Magritte's art helps elucidate the ingenious concept; a few transparent overlays alter pictures with each turn, further demonstrating the imaginative principles of surrealism. (c) Copyright 2012. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Belgian painter Rene Magritte, cast here as a dog, sees in a shop window a marvelous hat that appears to float above his head. He buys the hat, and it floats above his head wherever he goes. The two play games, traipsing in and around the streets of Paris, and the hat proves to be substantial artistic inspiration as well. Rather than trying to explain the surreal, Johnson captures its essence, blurring the line between perception and imagination. As Magritte and his hat have their fun, we see and experience the city through the painter's originative eyes. Johnson's crisp, polished illustrations, filled with nods to the artist's iconic imagery, celebrate Magritte's clear, almost upbeat absurdity. Four acetate inserts, printed on both sides to transfigure the pages before and after, enhance the curious sense of wonder. This jovial, peculiar outing is both an accessible introduction to the painter and a winning, nonsensical adventure in its own right. An author's note offers more information about Magritte, his work, and the surrealist movement.--Barthelmess, Thom Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
"AS my ideas get bigger," my 6-year-old son once told me, "you get smaller." Needless to say, this was a startling assessment for a parent to hear. It also reveals the utter stab in the dark an author makes when writing a children's book, trying to guess backward at just how knowing young readers might be. It seems, in light of my son's mystical warning, all too easy to underestimate your audience. Describing the creative process to children then, as these four new picture books do, seems an even more daunting challenge. Creativity, after all, is one of the things that kids tend to have in boisterous abundance, unlike their weary elders, who struggle to gain access to what they once tapped into freely. But the authors of these books - "The Obstinate Pen," "Penny and Her Song," "Magritte's Marvelous Hat" and "I'll Save You Bobo!" - have wisely finetuned their narratives, counseling children in the art of harnessing creativity and aiming it with purpose. "The Obstinate Pen" by Frank W. Dormer, the author and illustrator of "Socks-quatch," is the most original of the lot. In telling the clever story of a pen with a mind of its own, Dormer bridges the gap between youthful precocity and adult sophistication, and makes a very good point about artistic inspiration along the way. When Uncle Flood unwraps his new pen and tries to put down his first sentence, "The following story is all true," the pen instead forces him to write, "You have a BIG nose." (And indeed the Great Pyramid of Giza does seem to be rising from the middle of poor Uncle Flood's face.) From this point on, the irreverent pen travels from one grown-up to the next - all whimsically drawn in ink and watercolor - impelling each one to write something more honest, and frequently more insulting, than the writer intended. These impish remarks are certain to elicit gleeful belly laughs from young readers throughout. At last, when the opinionated pen meets its match - a child who, unlike the adults before him, both knows and is not afraid of his true creative impulses - it surrenders with grace. Kevin Henkes is the creator of such famous mice as Lilly ("Julius, the Baby of the World," "Lilly's Big Day" and "Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse"); Wemberly ("Wemberly Worried"); and Chrysanthemum (who stars in the book and short film - charmingly narrated by Meryl Streep - of the same name). Henkes, in short, knows mice. In "Penny and Her Song," his latest, a small mouse learns the importance of instinct and timing. Penny has a song to sing, one she wrote herself, but her parents are worried she'll wake her baby siblings. When she is relegated to her bedroom, Penny discovers that there is no pleasure in performing without an audience. Finally, when her parents, well meaning (as so many of the adults in Henkes's fictional world are, always conveying a kind of genial authority), allow Penny to put on her show, the whole family join in, donning costumes and dancing along. These are the book's best illustrations: Henkes's reassuringly familiar mice, with their happy pointy faces, giving it all they've got, sunglasses, feather boas and all. There is no trace of irreverence - just pure innocent fun. IN "Magritte's Marvelous Hat," D. B. Johnson, best known for his series of children's books inspired by the life of Henry David Thoreau, introduces the concept of Surrealism to young readers by telling a fantastical story about the Belgian artist René Magritte. In this book, however, Magritte appears as a dog. (Johnson also transforms Thoreau into a bear.) In a story seemingly fashioned after Albert Lamorisse's classic short film "The Red Balloon," Magritte the dog discovers a magical black bowler much like the one often portrayed in the artist's paintings. Magritte and the hat become fast friends, wandering playfully through the city streets. As long as the hat hovers over his head, it emboldens Magritte as a painter: "His brush danced and the colors sang." The book's greatest appeal, however, is its appropriately wondrous artwork - large mixed-media illustrations with dreamlike details modeled after Magritte's own paintings (an orange obscuring a shopkeeper's face, the ocean reflected from a doorway). On some pages, Johnson has added a clear plastic overlay with just enough illustration to alter the preceding page's picture, along with the narrative, when it is flipped. The resulting trick effects, provoking a sense of mystery from the everyday, pay fitting tribute to the artist brought to life in the book's pages. "I'll Save You Bobo!," written by Eileen Rosenthal and illustrated by her husband, Marc Rosenthal, is the stand-alone sequel to "I Must Have Bobo!" in which the same three characters - Willy, a boy who looks as if he could be a cousin of Ludwig Bemelmans's Madeline, with his big round head and primary-colored outfits; Bobo the stuffed monkey; and Earl the mischievous cat - act out the drama of trying to live peaceably under one roof. In both books, Willy must fend off Earl and his furtive efforts to snatch the monkey. In "I'll Save You Bobo!" Willy wrestles with his emotions, particularly his rage at Earl, by writing books about the three of them getting trapped in a jungle with poisonous mushrooms, menacing tigers and an enormous green snake that in the end eats guess-who for dinner? Yes, Earl. The story sets the world right for Willy - that is, until Earl absconds with Bobo again in real life. My son was right. As children learn and grow, the adults in their lives shrink in proportion, even if only to their rightful size. But there is no such calculation for creativity, a power we're all granted so long as we can find our way to it and, when we're lucky, let it out. Nell Casey is the editor of "The Journals of Spalding Gray" and "Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression." She is a former books columnist for Cookie magazine.