Five picture books for #fivewomenartists

Can you name five women artists? It's surprisingly difficult for most people, even more so if you leave out the big three: Mary Cassatt, Frida Kahlo, Georgia O'Keeffe. This March, for Women's History Month, the National Museum for Women in the Arts (NMWA) is leading a social media campaign to share stories of women artists using the hashtag #fivewomenartists. I'm doing my part by sharing this list of five great picture books about women artists. Not including Cassatt, Kahlo, or O'Keeffe, although there are some gorgeous picture books about them, too!

Louise Bourgeois, M is for Mother, 1998, pen and ink with colored pencil and graphite, National Gallery of Art, Washington

Cloth Lullaby: The Woven Life of Louise Bourgeois by Amy Novesky; illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault (Abrams, 2016). As a child,  20th-century artist and sculptor Louise Bourgeois learned to weave and repair tapestries alongside her mother in the family's tapestry restoration workshop. This experience inspired some of her most powerful works, including a series of steel spider sculptures--the largest of which is called Maman.

Four Pictures by Emily Carr by Nicolas Debon (Groundwood, 2003). Emily Carr (1871-1945) is one of Canada's most renowned artists; her work is now exhibited with and compared to Kahlo's and O'Keeffe's. In this graphic novel, Debon traces Carr's life story through four of her best paintings (also reproduced here).

Summer Birds: The Butterflies of Maria Merian by Margarita Engle; illustrated by Julie Paschkis (Henry Holt, 2010). I interviewed Margarita about this book when it first came out six years ago, and I still love it. Told in the voice of the young Maria Merian, 17th-century Dutch artist and naturalist.

Beatrix Potter and the Unfortunate Tale of a Borrowed Guinea Pig by Deborah Hopkinson; illustrated by Charlotte Voake (Shwartz and Wade, 2016). Spoiler alert: the guinea pig DIES. But if you can get past that, this is a charming book, and the picture-letter format is similar to how Beatrix Potter's own early stories were written. There's even a P.S. (the author's note). 

Stand There! She Shouted: The Invincible Photographer Julia Margaret Cameron by Susan Goldman Rubin; illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline (Candlewick, 2014) AND Imogen: The Mother of Modernism and Three Boys by Amy Novesky; illustrated by Lisa Congdon (Cameron + Company, 2012). Not one but two picture book biographies of photographers, Julia Margaret Cameron (British, 1815-79) and Imogen Cunningham (American, 1883-1976). 

There. Now if anyone should ask you to name five women artists, you're all set (and then some--don't forget the illustrators of these books). Of course, you probably already were. Who's on your list?

First Impressions: Andrew Wyeth

My grandmother had a framed print of Christina's World (1948) by Andrew Wyeth, and even though I've never seen the actual painting (I wonder if she had? It's in the MoMA's collection), I still love it. It's such an evocative image. So I'm excited about the National Gallery's forthcoming exhibition, Andrew Wyeth: Looking Out, Looking In, featuring another favorite Wyeth painting, Wind from the Sea (1947); and reading a bit about Wyeth in advance.

Fortunately, I have my own copy of First Impressions: Andrew Wyeth by Richard Meryman (Abrams, 1991). Meryman, who first met Wyeth while writing an article for LIFE magazine in 1964, became a friend of the artist and has gone on to publish a number of books about Wyeth and his work, most recently A Spoken Self-Portrait (NGA, 2013). Their friendship undoubtedly informs Meryman's biography of Wyeth, written while Wyeth was still living; the author describes it as "a distillation of years of talk and understanding." It's part of the First Impressions series of artist's biographies developed especially for older middle grade and young adult audiences and published by Abrams in the 1990s--insightful and thorough, these are all well worth seeking out.

Susan Goldman Rubin covers a bit more ground in Everybody Paints! The Lives and Art of the Wyeth Family (Chronicle, 2014), including three generations of artists, N.C. (Andrew's father), Andrew, and Jamie (his son). Also part of a series (I reviewed Rubin's Delicious: The Life and Art of Wayne Thiebaud here; Wideness and Wonder is about Georgia O'Keeffe), Rubin's book would make an interesting comparison with Meryman's, at least as far as Andrew is concerned. I will report back.

The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau

Henri Rousseau was a toll collector for the city of Paris when, at the age of 40, he decided to become an artist--a famous artist. Michelle Markel's picture book biography The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau (illustrated by Amanda Hall; Eerdmans, 2012) begins with that surprising decision. Her precise and poignant text balances Rousseau's love of nature and growing confidence in his own work (he was self-taught) with his lifelong desire for critical recognition.

Poor Henri! No sooner does he paint something we might consider a masterpiece(The Sleeping Gypsy, The Hungry Lion Throws Itself on the Antelope, and The Dream are referenced in the text or in Hall's illustrations) than the experts say mean things about it: "They say it looks like he closed his eyes and painted with his feet."

But Rousseau keeps painting. Eventually, near the end of his life, younger, more well-known artists befriend him. One of them, Pablo Picasso, even throws a banquet in his honor (that's Picasso with Fernande Olivier on the right; a key at the back of the book identifies the other historical figures in the illustration below).

At last, and over one hundred years later, Rousseau's paintings hang in museums around the world. [There are three on view at the National Gallery; I'm excited to see them after having read the book.]

Amanda Hall's illustrations, rendered in watercolor and acrylics, really capture the feel of Rousseau's work, from the lush foliage and flowers to the faces of people and animals. In an illustrator's note (there's also an author's note, but sadly no sources), Hall writes that she "decided to break the rules of scale and perspective to reflect [Rousseau's] unusual way of seeing the world. For some of the illustrations, I drew directly on his actual paintings, altering them playfully to help tell the story." My favorite example is this image of a tiger literally crawling out of the canvas as Henri paints:

The understated text reads, "Sometimes Henri is so startled by what he paints that he has to open the window to let in some air."

Aside: Kids might be interested to know that the jungle in the computer-animated movie Madagascar was inspired by Rousseau's work. My own kids were also interested to know that I had a cheap print of Sleeping Gypsy in my college dorm room.

It's still my favorite Rousseau.

Martin de Porres, the rose in the desert

I wish I knew what drew Gary D. Schmidt, better known for realistic middle grade fiction such as The Wednesday Wars (a 2008 Newbery Honor book) and Okay for Now (2011), to the story of Martin de Porres, the first black saint in the Americas (actually, Schmidt tells us, Martin was the son of an African mother and a Spanish nobleman, born in Lima and educated by his father in Ecuador). The author's note at the back of Martin de Porres: The Rose in the Desert (illustrated by David Diaz; Clarion, 2012) is no help.

Schmidt's text, however, emphasizes Martin's humility and service to the poor as well as his love of animals (the note does tell us that Martin is patron saint of, among other things, social justice, public education, and animal shelters). And David Diaz illuminates Martin's story with his distinctive mixed-media illustrations, in what the Horn Book calls "Latin American hues [?] of red, turquoise, gold, and brown."

My favorite image is more subdued: It's night. Martin, in his black-and white Dominican habit, carries a basket of bread. He has a brown dog at his heels. Two silvery angels guide his way.

My Havana for Nonfiction Monday

My Havana: Memories of a Cuban Boyhood by Rosemary Wells with Secundino Fernandez (illustrated by Peter Ferguson; Candlewick, 2010) encompasses the decade of my own parents' childhoods, and the city young Dino describes in it is almost as familiar to me as if I remembered it myself:

Until I [Dino] am six years old, in 1954, my world is sweet. "We live in a city built by angels," Papi says. There is no cold in Havana, only sunshine and warm rain. The city's avenues are lined with arcades of coral stone archways, ancient doors, and window frames....

The architecture of the colonial capital fascinates Dino (he grows up to be an architect), and he fills his sketchbooks with drawings of buildings, windows and doorways. As if taken from Dino's sketchbook, pencil drawings of architectural details are overlaid on a view of the rooftops in this wordless double-page spread:

Peter Ferguson's painterly illustrations, done in oil with spot art in pencil, capture a city suffused with golden light: very different from both Madrid, where Dino lives with his maternal grandparents from 1954-56, and New York City, where he and his family settle in 1959 after Castro comes to power in Cuba. They're an integral part of this relatively short (65 pages), yet surprisingly rich book.

Rosemary Wells was inspired to write My Havana after hearing an interview with Secundino Fernandez in which he described his intense homesickness for Havana, and his attempt to alleviate it by building a cardboard model of the city on the floor of his bedroom in New York (that episode makes it into the book, too). It's a beautiful and evocative example of the power of place in childhood memory, and one for which I am especially grateful.

A note on politics: The text of My Havana touches on the repressive Franco regime in Spain as well as on the Batista dictatorship and the Cuban revolution under Castro. I only wish the author's note had not.

Delicious: The Life and Art of Wayne Thiebaud

One of my favorite paintings in the East Building of the National Gallery is Wayne Thiebaud's Cakes (1963). Kids tend to love Cakes, too: the subject (of course), the number and variety of cakes in the painting to choose from, the ribbons and swirls of paint like icing on each one. It does look delicious.

Thiebaud paints more than just cakes, though; and Susan Goldman Rubin's Delicious: The Life and Art of Wayne Thiebaud (Chronicle, 2007) is an appealing introduction to both.  It's also ideal for upper elementary and middle school students looking for something more substantial (at just over 100 beautifully designed pages) than a picture book biography of an artist.

Rubin's text--like Thiebaud's life, it would seem--is simple and straightforward, punctuated with quotes from the artist in oversize block letters and illustrated on almost every facing page with carefully chosen examples of his work (many of which are from private collections). I especially appreciate Rubin's attention to these individual works of art: in just a few sentences, she models how to write about art in a way that kids can understand and appreciate.

For example, in Chapter 6, "From Farms to 'Fantasy City'," Rubin focuses on Thiebaud's landscape and cityscape painting. Here's Rubin's description of Dark City (1999):

Dark City portrays San Francisco at night. Tall skyscrapers painted in deep shades of purple and periwinkle blue create a mood of excitement. The colors, though not true to life, give the feeling of nighttime. Little dabs of yellow and red suggest lit windows, street lamps, and cars driving up and down a hill that seems to go straight up into the air. The painting is huge--over 6 feet high--and is all verticals. Even the steep hill rising up in the middle like a roller coaster is shaped like the rectangular buildings on either side. (84)

[Me again.] Dark City is also gorgeous, all the more so for being a bit of surprise (to me, at least). Thiebaud's landscapes of the Sacramento River Delta, too, are strikingly beautiful.

But he always returns to Cakes, and so will I. At the gallery, I like to ask kids to sketch just one cake, making it fill the whole page. Next time I might ask them to describe it in words as well. Which cake would you choose?

Me, Frida

Amy Novesky's picture book biography of Frida Kahlo, Me, Frida (illustrated by David Diaz; Abrams, 2010), encompasses only one year--from 1930 to 1931, when the newly married Frida accompanied her husband Diego Rivera to San Francisco--but it's a critical one in Frida's development as an artist. Rivera, already an established artist himself, had been commissioned to paint a mural for the city and set to work almost immediately.

Novesky's elegant text delineates Frida's initial sense of loss and isolation (she had never traveled outside of Mexico and didn't speak English or have friends in San Francisco); her growing self-confidence as she explores the city on her own; and her arrival at what would become a distinctive style of painting--very different from Rivera's--intimate and inspired by 19th century Mexican folk art and portraiture.

The book culminates with the painting of this portrait, now in the collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (and reproduced in the Author's Note):

"That night, Frida painted something great: a colorful wedding portrait of herself and Diego. She painted Diego big, and she painted herself small, just as the world saw them.

But Frida knew she was more than this. And she put herself first. In the beak of a pink bird, she wrote a tiny note on violet ribbon:

Here you see us, me, Frida Kahlo, with my adored husband Diego Rivera. I painted these portraits in the beautiful city of San Francisco, California...in April of 1931."

David Diaz's paintings for Me, Frida are gorgeous, glowing works of art themselves. They were done in acrylic, charcoal and varnish on primed linen; in vibrant colors (acid yellow, turquoise, red-orange and hot pink) evocative of Frida's Mexico, and of San Francisco, too. I especially love their composition, the way Diaz's final painting, in which Frida stands in front of the wedding portrait at the opening of her first show, neatly reverses the scale of the two figures to herald Frida's arrival as an artist in her own right:

Diaz includes the pink bird from Frida's wedding portrait in almost every double-page spread, perched beside Frida or peering over her shoulder as she works. And although Novetsky's text doesn't mention the childhood illness and injuries that made walking painful for Frida (so often the focus of books about her, such as Jonah Winter's Frida--I should review that one next), she is sometimes shown, statuesque and beautiful, carrying a cane.

David Diaz and Me, Frida won a 2011 Pura Belpre Illustrator Honor.  Richly deserved, and highly recommended, for everyone.

Dave the Potter

I'm looking forward to Dave the Potter by Laban Carrick Hill; illustrated by Bryan Collier (Little, Brown, 2010), and reviewed in today's Shelf Awareness (9/15/2010).  Dave was a 19th-century potter and poet from South Carolina, where he was enslaved for most of his life.  He inscribed some of his pottery with two-line poems, practical ("put every bit all between / surely this jar will hold 14," indicating that the jar would hold 14 gallons) as well as personal ("I wonder where is all my relation / friendship to all--and, every nation").  In any case, reading and writing, even signing his name (which he also did, in beautiful script, "Dave") was forbidden to slaves, making Dave the Potter's work even more powerful and rare.

Hill's text, fittingly, is also a poem about making a pot, crafted of short, strong lines; Bryan Collier's earth-toned watercolor and collage illustrations provide the larger context (the pairing is described in Brown's review as "a glorious collaboration").  The back matter is thorough and includes some of Dave's poems (I quoted my favorites from them) as well as photographs of his work.  You can even peek inside Dave the Potter using BookBrowse.

Grownups like me who want to know more about Dave should try Carolina Clay: The Life and Legend of Slave Potter Dave by Leonard Todd (Norton, 2008).  Todd is a descendant of one of Dave's owners; he began his research after finding out about his family's connection to Dave in this New York Times article ("In a slave's pottery, a saga of courage and beauty," 1/30/2000).  Finally, local folk can see an alkaline-glazed stoneware jar made by Dave the Potter in 1862, on display in the Civil War collection at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC.

A Boy Named Giotto

We read A Boy Named Giotto by Paolo Guarnieri (illustrated by Bimba Landmann; FSG, 1999) at the National Gallery of Art yesterday, as part of the NGA's summer series Stories in Art (this year's theme is Explore Italy).  Inspired a legend about the artist's childhood, the story tells how the boy Giotto, with materials borrowed from the artist Cimabue, paints a sheep so convincingly that even her missing lamb is fooled and returns to Giotto's father's flock.  When Cimabue sees Giotto's painting of the sheep, he asks Giotto's father to let his son become Cimabue's apprentice, which eventually he does.

Landmann's elegant illustrations are likewise inspired by the work of Giotto, which is a daunting task; but not imitative, which never works anyway.  They evoke the early Renaissance, with its Byzantine grace and modern spirit.  I love the palette Landmann uses here as well, all rusts and ochres and gold.

Unfortunately, A Boy Named Giotto is out of print (my library doesn't even hold it anymore) so we haven't been able to reread it or look closely at the illustrations.  If you can find this one, it's worth it.  In gold (or at least gold leaf).

[Nonfiction Monday is at In need of chocolate this week.  Thanks!]

The Humblebee Hunter by Deborah Hopkinson, for Earth Day

"One summer afternoon Mother and Cook tried to teach me to bake a honey cake."

The narrator of Deborah Hopkinson's The Humblebee Hunter, Inspired by the Life and Experiments of Charles Darwin and his Children (Hyperion, 2010) is Darwin's daughter Henrietta, or Etty.  I suppose I can't blame her for not wanting to be in the kitchen on a summer afternoon (I have a pet peeve about girls in books who are interested in science never liking needlework or cooking).  She is otherwise a wonderful narrator, at first reflective about her father and family's scientific curiosity, and then excited to take part in an experiment--counting the number of flowers a humblebee visits in one full minute--that also gets her out of the kitchen.

Deborah Hopkinson was inspired to write about Darwin's family life by a visit to the Darwin exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History (the image above is of the garden at Down House, where the experiment would have taken place) and The Humblebee Hunter, while technically historical fiction, captures what it must have been like to grow up in the Darwin household.  There's no reason (apart from scary Colony Collapse Disorder) you couldn't observe a humblebee in your own garden, though--I did, and my count was the same as Etty's!

A note about the pictures:  I always adore Jen Corace's work.  Its slight formality is perfectly suited to the period and the story of The Humblebee Hunter, as are its precise and graceful brown ink line and watercolor palette.

Read more about The Humblebee Hunter in Deborah Hopkinson's "Behind the Book" column for BookPage and her post at Wonders and Marvels (my new favorite blog, subtitled "A Community for Curious Minds who love History, its Odd Stories, and Good Reads").  And go humblebee hunting on the next sunny afternoon!  Or, if you're so inclined, bake a honey cake and read this book instead.  Highly recommended.

Summer Birds: Maria Merian and Margarita Engle

I'm delighted to welcome Margarita Engle back to bookstogether, in advance of the publication of her first picture book, Summer Birds: The Butterflies of Maria Merian (Henry Holt, April 2010) and in honor of National Women's History Month.

This year's theme is Writing Women Back Into History, which is precisely what Margarita is doing for Maria Merian, a 17th century Dutch naturalist and artist whose work greatly advanced our understanding of the metamorphosis of the butterfly.  Margarita graciously answered my questions about all aspects of Summer Birds, from research to writing to seeing the the illustrations (by Julie Paschkis) for the very first time.

Anamaria Anderson (AA):  How did you first become acquainted with Maria Merian and her work?

Margarita Engle (ME):  More than twenty-five years ago, I was an agronomy professor and botanist.  I stumbled onto a book of Merian's work in a library's rare book room.  I fell in love with her artwork, and her courage as a scientist and explorer.

After learning as much as I could about her life and travels, I wrote a story about her for South American Explorer Magazine.  They paid me with a t-shirt showing South America as a butterfly's folded wing, with rivers as veins.

I also tried to write a children's story, but that was something new for me, and after a couple of rejections, I put the manuscript in a drawer, and did not touch it until a couple of years ago.  A couple of years ago, while cleaning my desk, I rediscovered it, revised it slightly, and sent it to Reka Simonsen, my editor at Holt.  I didn't expect her to accept it, but she did, and her choice of Julie Paschkis as the illustrator was genius.

AA:  What were some of the challenges of distilling your scholarly work into picture book format?

ME:  I grew up in a room filled with animals.  My sister and I were constantly "rescuing" caterpilllars, tadpoles, and other creatures, both large and small. It was easy to retrieve memories of my astonishment as I "discovered" metamorphosis.  For this picture book, I really wanted to portray Merian's childhood "aha" moment, that instant when she realized that she should trust her own observations of life cycles, rather than believing the superstitions of adults.  It is one of scientific history's most marvelous examples of truly original thinking.

AA:  How did the process of writing a picture book compare to writing a verse novel (such as The Firefly Letters; Henry Holt, 2010)?

ME:  The picture book experience was intense.  This is a characteristic shared with each individual poem in a verse novel.  It feels like tunnel vision, or time travel.  I basically can't see or hear anything except that one poem, or in this case, Merian's aha moment.  Nothing else in the world matters, during the writing process. 

AA:Summer Birds is beautifully illustrated by Julie Paschkis (also one of my favorites).  What was your reaction when you saw the illustrations for the first time?

ME:  They took my breath away!  Julie Paschkis planted my little seed of a story, and grew a whole world.  She did such a beautiful job of combining Merian's childhood sense of wonder with accurate science, as well as the fantastic medieval superstitions of adults.  People have asked me how an illustrator could "compete" with Merian's real artwork, but once they see this book, I am sure they will agree that Paschkis accomplished the impossible.

AA:  Do you have favorite details of the art you would like your readers to notice?

ME:  I love the way you can peek under the dust jacket, and see an entirely different illustration on the hard cover of the book, in a dramatically contrasting color scheme.

[Another] one of my favorite details is a ship with sails made of butterfly wings.  What a beautiful way to convey a child's dream of exploring!  That image of an adventurous ship with fragile wings is worthy of Merian's courage as an adult, when she really did sail forth to explore South America's rain forest, at a time when women did not travel.

AA:  That is a gorgeous image!  Could you tell us a little about your next picture book project?

ME:  My next picture book is about wilderness search and rescue dogs.  I know this subject from personal experience.  My husband is a volunteer K9 handler, with two dogs who search the Sierra Nevada mountains whenever a hiker gets lost.  My role is hiding in the forest so the dogs can practice.  I've spent many wonderfully quiet hours alone in the woods, waiting to be found.

AA:  And your next verse novel?

ME:  My next novel in verse is Hurricane Dancers, to be published by Holt this time next year.  It's about the first Caribbean pirate shipwreck, and in particular, about the native Cubans who were encountered by the pirate and his hostage, a wounded conquistador.

I already knew that I have ancestors who were pirates, and I was already working on this book when I learned that I carry a genetic marker for Ciboney/Taíno ancestry.  I descend from a tribe that has been considered extinct for five centuries.  Anyone who has grown up with tales of genocide knows the emotional impact of discovering that there were survivors.

AA:  Thank you, Margarita.  I can't imagine a more perfect voice for that story, and for this one.

Summer Birds: The Butterflies of Maria Merian is a beautiful book, one that works wonderfully well both as a biography of a little-known woman naturalist and as an introduction to metamorphosis for young picture book readers and listeners.  Highly recommended.

[Nonfiction Monday is at The Miss Rumphius Effect today.  Thanks, Tricia!]

Nonfiction Monday: Mozart, The Wonder Child

Mozart is a perfect candidate for a picture book biography, and Diane Stanley's Mozart:  The Wonder Child, A Puppet Play in Three Acts (HarperCollins, 2009) is, in my view, a perfect example of one: informative and engaging text, well-chosen detail, lots of back matter, and--this is important--beautiful design.

Stanley, who has written and illustrated eleven other picture book biographies, is past master at this art.  She was inspired to present Mozart's life as a puppet play by the Salzburg Marionette Theatre (thus the strings).  I'm not convinced that this is a puppet play, although I like the three-act structure of the text; the art (minus the strings) is, however, exquisite, and of course everyone is lavishly dressed.  I particularly like the handwritten musical staffs that correspond to what Mozart is composing on a given page; and the way the footnotes, which are designated by quarter and eighth notes, are presented on scrolls by little cherubs.

With younger children, read Play, Mozart, Play (a play on words) by Peter Sis (Greenwillow, 2006).  For older children, pair this with Mozart: The Boy Who Changed the World With His Music (with reproductions of portraits and other paintings, and photos of places) by Marcus Weeks (National Geographic, 2007).

Most important, listen--or play!--some of Mozart's music.  After reading this together, Leo asked if he could learn to play something by Mozart on his violin, and was surprised to learn that Mozart had composed (variations on) his very first piece:  Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.  Maybe you know it?

Nonfiction Monday: The Storyteller's Candle

The Storyteller's Candle (La velita de los cuentos; Children's Book Press, 2008) may be technically fiction, but it's a wonderful way to introduce children to Pura Belpre, the New York Public Library's first Puerto Rican librarian; and particularly appropriate today, on the eve of Three Kings' Day. In Lucia Gonzalez's story, it's the winter of 1929, and cousins Hildamar and Santiago, newly arrived in New York City from Puerto Rico, wonder if the Three Kings can travel that far. But then Pura Belpre welcomes them and their families to the library and organizes a Three Kings' Day celebration featuring a performance of the Perez y Martina folktale. You can read more about Belpre and her work as a storyteller, puppeteer and writer as well as a librarian in a biographical note at the back of the book, which has been published in a bilingual edition.

Lulu Delacre's warm and lovely illustrations also merit a note here and at the back of the book. They include bits of an original copy of the New York times from January 6, 1930 (that would be Three Kings' Day) that relate to the part of the story on that page. For local folks: Lulu Delacre will be at Aladdin's Lamp in Arlington on Sunday, January 11 at 1:30 to read from and sign The Storyteller's Candle. We'll try to be there, too!

[The 2009 Pura Belpre Award winners will be announced along with the other ALA award winners (like the Newbery and Caldecott) on January 26; perhaps The Storyteller's Candle will be among them.  The Heartland Chapter of REFORMA held a mock Belpre session on Saturday; see the list of books under consideration here.  Any opinions on the Belpre?  Please share them here!]

[Nonfiction Monday is at Picture Book of the Day.  Thanks, Anastasia!]

Nonfiction Monday: George Washington's Christmas Camel

No, that's not the title of the latest picture book about George Washington (I'm still writing it).  Apparently, Washington paid 18 shillings to bring a camel to Mount Vernon for the Christmas holidays in 1787.  This year, the folks at Mount Vernon have expanded their Christmas program to include another Christmas camel, one-year-old Aladdin (pictured above with a Mount Vernon volunteer).  Leo's class got to see the camel on a field trip to Mount Vernon:  it was the high point of their visit.  Well, the camel, and being interviewed by a FOX television news reporter about the camel (the segment aired yesterday).  There is a surprising amount of local interest in this.  Actually, I feel a little bad for former White House pastry chef Roland Mesnier, who spent 300 hours reconstructing Mount Vernon out of gingerbread for this year's Christmas program only to be upstaged by a camel.

This seems like a good opportunity to mention a recent nonfiction picture book about George Washington, Farmer George Plants a Nation by Peggy Thomas; paintings by Layne Johnson (Calkins Creek, 2008).  Visitors to Mount Vernon learn (if they are not too distracted by the camel) that Washington considered himself first and foremost a farmer.  This book draws a neat parallel between Washington's work as a farmer, specifically his efforts to make Mount Vernon self-sustaining, and his more well-known accomplishments as general and president.  The text is accompanied by well-chosen quotes from Washington's diaries and letters; back matter includes a timeline, short essays about George at Mount Vernon and George's thoughts on slavery, and a good bibliography.  No camels, though!

Happy birthday, Wilma

Today is Wilma Rudolph's birthday; she was born on June 23, 1940 near Clarksville, Tennesee, the twentieth of twenty-two children (I love this detail).  Wilma was the first American woman to win three gold medals in an Olympic Games (Rome, 1960); she defeated polio and prejudice to get there.  We re-read Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World's Fastest Woman by Kathleen Krull; illustrated by David Diaz (Harcourt, 1996) today in her honor; she became one of Leo's heroes (and mine, too) when we first read this book before the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.  It's an amazing story; well worth reading before this summer's Olympic Games in Beijing, too.

[See more Nonfiction Monday posts at Picture Book of the Day.]

Nonfiction Monday: Gray?

These are the opening lines of The Secret World of Hildegard, a picture book biography of Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) written by Jonah Winter and illustrated by Jeannette Winter (Arthur A. Levine Books, 2007):

Hundreds and hundreds of years ago in a time known as the Middle Ages, men ruled over the earth.  And these men were very gray.  And the buildings they built were very gray.  And all the towns were very gray.  And all the gray towns were run by mayors who were men.  Girls were not allowed to go to school, and most girls could not read.  They were taught to serve and obey all the boys around them.  They were taught to keep quiet and to be very gray.

Is this an accurate description of the Middle Ages?  Is it how most people imagine them (not my former students, I hope)?  Or does it function as a dramatic device, as the Horn Book's review (available here) suggests; one that allows the Winters to "set the scene perfectly: out of the dark, gray world of the Middle Ages shines the radiant light of visionary Hildegard."  Is it acceptable (if also, I would argue, overly generalizing and negative in the extreme) for a nonfiction picture book?

I'm a medievalist. I would have loved this small square volume (I, or rather my kids, are probably its intended audience):  Jonah Winter's writing is simple and elegant; Jeannette Winter's illuminations, done in acrylic and pen on watercolor paper, manage to be both medieval and modern (and gorgeous).  There is a good author's note expanding on Hildegard's fame as a scientist and composer as well as a mystic visionary; and a bibliography.  If I could only get past the first page.