Rococo Rapunzel

Does this scene look familiar?  It might, if you've recently seen a certain computer-animated adaptation of one of my favorite fairy tales.  The good news is I liked it a lot more than I thought I would based on the trailer (which was not at all).

The bad news is it doesn't really resemble Fragonard's The Swing (which, coincidentally enough, I also saw recently, at the Wallace Collection), although the animators referenced the painting for inspiration (Bill Desowitz, "Chicken Little and Beyond," Animation World Network, 11/4/2005).  The more I look at it, though, the more I notice elements of The Swing--the palette, the frothiness of the flowers and leaves--that did make it into the movie.  Oh, and this iconic image:

Have you seen Tangled?  What did you think?

Interrupting Chicken with happy surprises

There were some favorite books and happy surprises for me among the ALA Award winners on Monday.  The best was David Ezra Stein's Caldecott Honor for Interrupting Chicken (Candlewick).  It was on my list!  It was my six-year-old daughter Milly's most favorite book last year, too.  According to the copyright page, the illustrations were done in a unique combination of watercolor, water-soluble crayon, china marker, pen, opaque white ink, and tea.  They results are gorgeous--the glowing colors and painterly technique used for the little red chicken and her Papa in the main story contrast beautifully with the more old-fashioned looking pen drawings used for the stories-within-the-story (Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, and Chicken Little).  And then there's Bedtime for Papa, illustrated by the little red chicken herself (she seems to use only crayon).  A classic.

I was also happy to see Margarita Engle recognized with a Pura Belpre Author Honor for The Firefly Letters: A Suffragette's Journey to Cuba.  This is my favorite of Engle's verse novels (so far); I wrote about it here, quoting a passage about the Santa Lucia celebration in Sweden and its connection to the fireflies in the title (and on the cover).  Engle's Hurricane Dancers: The First Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck (Henry Holt) will be out in March.

And finally, Tomie dePaola won the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for his "substantial and lasting contribution to children's literature."  I love Tomie de Paola, especially at Christmastime (it's his favorite holiday, too!), and was already happy that last year's Joy to the World: Tomie's Christmas Stories (Putnam Juvenile) includes The Story of the Three Wise Kings, which has long been out of print.  Now if only Pages of Music (written by Tony Johnston, illustrated by Tomie) and An Early American Christmas were in there, it would be perfect.

What were your happy surprises on the ALA Awards list?  Or (unhappily)...off of it?  I have some of those, too.

Middle Grade Gallery 10

The Middle Grade Gallery is back with a three-part question about this compelling portrait, now owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art:

Here is a written description of the portrait sitting, from a Newbery Medal-winning middle grade novel:

Master said I was to wear my everday clothes, only he gave me a large white collar with deep points, lace-edged (one of his own), to set off the somber darkness of my dress and my dusky complexion.

He placed me before him, told me to look directly at him, and to clasp my cloak so that it should fall over at my left shoulder.

And of the finished portrait, from the same source:

There I stood, looking at myself, as if in a mirror.  All apart from the likeness, which was startling (Master had no peer at that), the composition was harmonious and impressive in typical Spanish fashion, and yet there was an unusual glow of golden light around my head and on my skin, and an inner content which I can scarcely describe,  It was as if Master had painted what you see on the outside, and also, just as clearly, what was there in the inside...the thoughts inside my head.

This portrait also plays an important role in a 2011 ALA Award-winning picture book (I'm not saying which award, or which book, obviously!).  Can you name

• the artist and subject of this portrait,
• the title and author of the Newbery Medal winner quoted, and
• the title and author of this year's relevant ALA Award winner?

Bonus points for the adjective that best describes the expression on his face.  You don't even have to answer the other questions!

Turtle in Paradise

We read, or rather listened to, Jennifer L. Holm's Turtle in Paradise (Random House, 2010) under the best possible circumstances--while driving to the Keys (that would be Paradise) during last year's summer vacation--so I have fond memories of it and was very happy (if also a little surprised) to see it get a Newbery Honor.  Turtle in Paradise is in some ways a typical Newbery pick, at least this year: it's historical fiction; it's about a girl (that would be Turtle); she's sent away to live with relatives in a new and unfamiliar place.  That describes three of the five Newbery books this year (including the winner).  Narrow the historical part down to the Great Depression and you still have two (including this one and the winner).

Which is not to say that Turtle isn't a worthy pick: I happen to know a carful of people who liked it lots!  I checked it out of the library and reread it as soon as we got home even, and my only complaint was that the ending felt a little rushed (I was afraid I might have drifted off and missed something, actually).  But it was always funny, sour and sweet like a Key West cut-up, a great summer read or read-aloud.

Like Penny from Heaven and Our Only May Amelia, Holm's other Newbery Honor books, Turtle in Paradise was inspired by family history; and the Author's Note includes family photographs (I love these) as well as a testimonial to the effectiveness of a certain diaper-rash formula--Holm uses it on her own babies' bungies.

[In other news for fans of Jennifer Holm, a sequel to Our Only May Amelia at last!  The Trouble with May Amelia (Atheneum) will be out in April.]