Review by Booklist Review
Vivid paintings illuminate this picture book portraying artist Frida Kahlo, newly married to Diego Rivera and living with him in San Francisco. Homesick for Mexico and alone while Rivera works on his mural project, Kahlo feels lost, insignificant, and restless until she finds joy in exploring the city on her own. Emboldened, she begins to paint. At a party one night, she steps out of her husband's shadow and becomes the center of attention when she sings Mexican folk songs. Soon she exhibits a wedding portrait, Frida and Diego Rivera. The book's topic is an odd one for a children's picture book, but the writing is lucid, the emotions are universal, and the illustrations soar. Glowing with warm, vibrant colors, the charcoal and acrylic paintings create distinctive, statuesque people within imaginatively conceived landscapes, cityscapes, and interiors. The pink bird appearing in every scene is an element in the wedding portrait, which is photographically reproduced at the book's end.--Phelan, Carolyn Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Novesky's (Elephant Prince) portrait of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo depicts the artist as a reticent newcomer in a foreign country, who gradually gains self-confidence from her surroundings. Overflowing with compelling imagery ("Frida especially loved Chinatown. It smelled of incense, fish, and fog"), the story also incorporates the motif of Kahlo as a tiny bird. Married to muralist Diego Rivera, Kahlo is overshadowed by her adoring husband's size and reputation: "Diego, big as an elephant; Frida, a lovely little bird on his arm." When she and Rivera fly to San Francisco in 1930, they are shown holding hands and soaring-sans airplane-up the coastline. Readers will notice a small, pink bird in nearly every scene, the same one that appears in the painting that helped launch Kahlo's career. Vibrant spreads feature backdrops of warm colors dripping into cooler ones (and vice versa), just as the brightly dressed, bejeweled Kahlo melded with the damp, gray city. Diaz's (Ocean's Child) overlapping complementary colors add a gorgeous yet slightly unsettling visual element, his intense hues and folk/naive style recalling Kahlo's work. Ages 4-8. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 3-6-This picture book focuses on the year that Mexican painter Frida Kahlo and her husband, Diego Rivera, spent in San Francisco while he worked on murals for the Pacific Stock Exchange. It was 1930 and Frida was young, newly married, and just beginning her own career as a painter. She had never been out of Mexico and everything about this trip was new and overwhelming. Novesky adeptly tells how Kahlo began to gain her confidence and find her place in the world, using the city and its surroundings as inspiration for her own work. The writing is succinct and careful, and a portrait of Frida as a strong, feisty woman comes through clearly. Diaz's acrylic and charcoal paintings echo Kahlo's own folkloric style, brimming with color and detail, but are unique as well, providing a rich complement to the text. This is a solid choice as a supplement for a biography collection, but libraries looking for a way to introduce the artist should turn to Jonah Winter's Frida (Scholastic, 2002) or Margaret Frith's Frida Kahlo: The Artist Who Painted Herself (Grosset & Dunlap, 2003) instead.-Jody Kopple, Shady Hill School, Cambridge, MA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
In 1930, Frida Kahlo and her husband, Diego Rivera, left Mexico for San Francisco. Novesky describes Frida's loneliness and restlessness; not yet an established artist, she created a painting of herself small alongside Diego Rivera, large and important looking. Diaz's textured and color-saturated acrylic, charcoal, and varnish paintings pay atmospheric homage to the artists. An author's note is appended. (c) Copyright 2011. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A lushly painted picture book about the artist Frida Kahlo during her time in San Francisco with her husband, Diego Rivera. Figuring a pink bird on most pages as muse and symbol of the quiet, newly married Frida, Diaz's brilliant charcoal-and-acrylic paintings trace young Frida's feelings about the move, her first away from Mexico. The brilliant spreads chronicle the dramatic sunrises of the city, crisp blue days in the redwoods and the welcome reds of Chinatown. Frida's depicted as balancing a cane to indicate her lifelong infirmities, her long skirts and decorated hair remind the reader of her Mexican roots and the relative size of Rivera and Kahlo changes to show how Kahlo was feeling about herself. This story, though, one of an artistic Cinderella, begs for more information. Alas, the wan author's note and the lack of a timeline or bibliography leave young readers with little more than a snapshot of this artist. Though Kahlo's full, complicated, enigmatic life asks for a more mature audience (see Carmen T. Bernier-Grand'sexcellent Frida: Viva la Vida, 2007), this serves as a passable introduction. (Picture book/biography. 6-10)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
