Bones by Steve Jenkins: Not just for Halloween!

Children's book author and illustrator Steve Jenkins sets the standard for cut paper collage illustration in every one of his books (What Do You Do With a Tail Like This?, made in collaboration with Robin Page, won a Caldecott Honor in 2004).  His newest nonfiction book is Bones: Skeletons and How They Work (Scholastic, 2010).  You might think that bones, being mostly white, would be less interesting visually than the range of fins, fur, and feathers rendered in the rest of Jenkins's books about the animal kingdom (I might have, anyway); on the contrary, Bones is Jenkins at his best.

The bones themselves, cut from a limited palette of mottled creams and grays, glow against the solid background colors, but the best part is the arrangement of bones on the page, to inviting, eye-opening, often humorous effect (the gatefolded human skeleton waving at you is just one example).  Jenkins's background in graphic design really shows here.  Witty headings and compact text plus a More About Bones section at the back round out the book.

Bonus:  Add up the number of bones in the human body as you read; you should end up with Jenkins's total (which would be...?).

[Nonfiction Monday is at Mother Reader today.  Thanks, Pam!]

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.

How the Sphinx Got to the Museum, review and giveaway

Most of us only get to see Ancient Egyptian artifacts in museums far from Egypt--like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, which has one of the finest collections of Egyptian art outside of Cairo.  And while there are lots of books for kids about Ancient Egypt, this book answers the question that at least one kid on every school tour is likely to ask:  How the Sphinx Got to the Museum by Jessie Hartland (Blue Apple Books, 2010).

Hartland uses the school tour to frame the story of the Sphinx of Hateshepsut's journey over 3,000 years (and 5,000 miles), from the quarry at Aswan where the granite was obtained all the way to the galleries of the Met.  The cumulative story format--think The House that Jack Built--introduces some of the people and professions involved in her journey; on the museum side, those include archaeologists, art movers, curators, conservators, even the registrar, who uses "red oil paint and a teeny, tiny brush" to paint the the official number (31.3.166) on the Sphinx.

These vignettes are fascinating (trust me, kids ask about this sort of thing all the time).  Hartland varies the repetitive parts of the text just enough to keep things interesting; the use of a variety of fonts also helps here.  The ink-and-watercolor illustrations themselves are worth the price of admission, though:  colorful, detailed but not busy, expressive and entertaining (keep an eye on the Sphinx's face throughout).  Hartland worked closely with the staff at the Met, and the book has an authentic museum feel.  N.b., the docent is wearing sensible shoes.

I have an extra copy of How the Sphinx Got to the Museum to give away!  If you'd like to be entered in a random drawing (and you do; it's a gorgeous book), please leave a comment by midnight Monday, September 13.   Bonus entry if you comment with a behind-the-scenes-at-the-museum question you'd like to see answered in picture book form.

[Review copy from Blue Apple Books via Media Masters Publicity.  Thank you!]

Ballet for Martha

Sometimes art is made by one artist, working alone, but sometimes it is the result of artists working together--collaborating--to forge something new.

At this point, I'm just adding my voice to the chorus of praise (including five starred reviews) for Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan's latest collaboration, the picture book Ballet for Martha:  Making Appalachian Spring (illustrated by Brian Floca; Roaring Brook, 2010).  Actually, authors Greenberg and Jordan (Action Jackson, 2002; Christo and Jean-Claude: Through the Gates and Beyond, 2008) also collaborated with Floca and editor Neal Porter (not to mention book designer Jennifer Browne) to an unusual degree in the making of this book; see Booklist's Story Behind the Story (June, 2010) for their process.

Back to the book itself, which is about the collaboration of choreographer Martha Graham, composer Aaron Copland, and artist Isamu Noguchi in the making of Appalachian Spring (link is to a filmed version from 1959; the first performance was on October 30, 1944 at the Library of Congress).  Somehow Ballet for Martha beautifully conveys a Graham-like sense of movement, music, and spaciousness; all qualities that would seem to resist the book form.  It's in the spareness of the text, and the line of the illustrations.  And--a point that has not yet been made, I don't think--it's a book about ballet that's not pink.  No tutu required.

I did wonder who had designed the costumes (Martha Graham herself); an original cast member was able to describe the colors to Floca.  I should note that in the final image, of an imagined performance, the Bride is wearing a pink dress!  It must have been impossible to resist.  The back matter ("Curtain Call") includes brief biographies of Graham, Copland, and Noguchi, each accompanied by a photograph of the artist dating to the 1940s; as well as extensive source notes and bibliography.

Ballet for Martha is a masterpiece--both of them.  Don't miss it!