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16May

Bloom

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review
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Cover of Bloom shows a girl's face nearly obscured by flowersIf a biography is written in first person, I guess it’s not technically a biography. But Bloom, a picture book about the life of Elsa Schiaparelli, manages to tell the story beautifully with that first person frame.

On the opening pages we learn that Schiaparelli was not the baby boy her parents had been hoping for:

Every story starts somewhere.

My story begins on September 10, 1890, in a beautiful palazzo in the center of Roma. That’s in Italy.

Imagine a quiet room. Imagine a newborn baby looking up to see her pappa frowning, her mamma frowning.

I can’t imagine a stronger emotional link for the reader. And the book continues to explore the intense feelings and experiences of the innovative designer.

I loved reading about the artists that were Schiaparelli’s friends–Picasso, Picabia, Dali.

The story weaves in quotations so skillfully that I found myself needing to stop and look to see if those were really quotation marks, as when she describes discovering the shade of hot pink:

The color flashed in front of my eyes. Bright, impossible, impudent, becoming, life-giving…

The book’s end papers are, of course, gorgeous hot pink pages. The only thing missing is the librarian or teacher’s hot pink ensemble, which somehow seems like the appropriate garb when sharing this book.

Bloom: A Story of Fashion Designer Elsa Schiaparelli by Kyo Maclear, illustrated by Julie Morstad. Harper Collins: 2018.

Picture of children surrounding a globe

Alyson Beecher hosts the Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge at kidlitfrenzy.com. Visit there for more great nonfiction picture books!

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14Jun

Fancy Party Gowns

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review
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African American woman stands proudly in front of fancy party gowns.In Fancy Party Gowns I loved learning about one of those fascinating people from the corner of history–someone who changed a little bit of the world but who isn’t widely known. This is a book about a fashion designer, Ann Cole Lewis, who created a career for herself out of designing and producing high end dresses. She made the gown that Olivia de Haviland wore to receive her Oscar in 1947 and the wedding dress that Jacqueline Bouvier wore in 1953 when she married John Kennedy. Ann managed her career while, at the same time, managing anti-African American sentiment that tripped her up time and again.

I loved the way Deborah Blumenthal used refrains in the text of the book. When Ann faces challenges, like the death of her mother or the disastrous destruction of her work, “Ann thought about what she could do not what she couldn’t change.” When she faces discrimination, it’s “because she was African American. And life wasn’t fair.”

My heart sang at Ann’s triumphs over adversity and mean-spiritedness. And the book made me want to sit down with some fabric and a needle, too.End papers show many fancy party gowns.

The art is wonderful. Not surprisingly, there are wonderful fabric colors, textures, and patterns on every page. It dwells lovingly on tiny details related to sewing, like the handful of buttons strewn across the bottom of one page. I especially love the endpapers, which show some of the dresses Ann designed.

This is a book to read with The Hundred Dresses! One is fiction but this nonfiction story will give context and power to the idea of designing dresses.

Fancy Party Gowns: the Story of Fashion Designer Ann Cole Lewis, by Deborah Blumenthal, illustrated by Laura Freeman. little bee: 2017

Children with book around a globe

I participate every Wednesday in the Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge at Kid Lit Frenzy.

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