They Were Designing Women

There are still two huge trunks filled with fabric.  This fabric is richly spun and colored in an array of breathtaking motifs.  Some have been used to fashion gifts for newborns or lifelong friends.  Others await to be paired with collected patterns for clothing, interior home decor, or quilts.  A few, a very few, are there simply because of their beauty.

Two recent publications feature extraordinary women; women who were drawn to fabric and what can be made from fabric.  Both harnessed their passion, their talent, for design to rise to the top of their respective artistic realms.  Written by Jeanne Walker Harvey with illustrations by Diana Toledano, Dressing Up The Stars: The Story of Movie Costume Designer Edith Head (Beach Lane Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division, September 20, 2022) is the story of a young girl, a behind-the-scenes person, who grew to transform settings and characters through her personal perspectives.

Edith was a shy, lonely girl who didn't feel she belonged where she lived.  She wanted to be in a place full of people and sounds and dazzling sights.

Edith's family lived in a small town near a mine due to her stepfather's employment.  As far as her eyes could see was stone and sand.  To keep her loneliness at bay, Edith held tea parties for her animal friends and dressed them in doll clothes, necklaces and huge ribbons.

Sometimes when her family traveled four miles to the nearby town of Searchlight, Nevada, Edith would go door to door asking for pieces of fabric to place in her treasured bag.  Back at home she would use these pieces to sew accessories for her pet horned toads.  Unafraid Edith roamed the desert alone, but when she made costumes for sisters in a play, she stayed behind the curtain.

Edith longed to leave the desert.  Finally, she and her mother moved to Los Angeles so she could attend a high school.  Here, she tried to figure out the path she would take, but it was at the local movie theater she felt a dream start to grow.

After college and several years of teaching, Edith got a job as a sketch artist in a costume department.  Her boss recognized her lack of skills, but instead of firing her, he taught her.  At first Edith's designs were far from good, but she practiced and practiced and practiced.  She was finally making costumes . . . for movie animals.

From there, Edith was asked to fit humans with costumes.  She was not an instant success, but years of work lead to her eventual prominence.  One special night, the first of eight such nights, Edith heard her name announced in a large venue filled with movie people.  The lonely little girl was now a star!

In her writing of this biography, Jeanne Walker Harvey allows readers, regardless of their age, to find portions of themselves in the life of this woman.  Readers can identify with her loneliness, shyness, trying to discover her life's work, and pursuit, however hard, of a creative style.  Jeanne Walker Harvey includes specific details such as the names of the burros Edith, as a little girl, embellished with ribbons, a personal quote by Edith and the disastrous particulars of candy costumes for characters attending a glamorous dance.  In the beginning of this narrative, an adjective is used to describe Edith's big wish.  It is used again as the last word in the last sentence.  This is a wonderful writing technique.  Here is a passage.

Instead, she dressed up animals.

They were not easy clients.

Camels spit on her.  Elephants yanked off their decorations.

Edith missed her desert toads and burros, who let her

adorn them without a fuss.

But Edith was confident.

When viewing the open and matching dust jacket and book case, the bright white background highlights the exquisitely rendered elements in Diana Toledano's signature illustrative interpretation.  To the right of the spine, on the front, we see Edith Head at the height of her career amid fabric and fashions designed by her.  To the left of the spine, on the back, Edith, as a little girl, is seated.  Here she is surrounded by pieces of fabric and sewing accessories like buttons, pins, needles and thread.  She is carefully stitching a hat for one of her horned toads.  On the front, the main title text is raised to the touch.  Here and on the back, the colorful elements are varnished.

On the opening and closing endpapers and on the first and last pages, on a white canvas, Diana Toledano has placed beautifully patterned, in two hues of muted blue, an array of clothing and accessories.  Each item is part of a pleasing whole.  On the title page, again in full color, we see Edith Head's hands as she works at her desk covered with drawings of possible designs. 

This artwork was created

by hand using many techniques:  gouache, collage, colored pencils, crayons, pastels, and more.  

It was digitally edited.  Most of the images are double-page pictures.  For those that are not, several smaller illustrations are grouped to show the passage of time or a series of similar events.

Intricately detailed visuals portray and enhance the text marvelously.  We feel the vastness of the barren landscape, home to Edith as a child.  We rejoice in her imaginative play and sewing endeavors.  We feel as though we are seated with her in the movie theater when she is a teen.  We struggle when she struggles and cheer when she is triumphant.  The patterns used in each of these images all allude to her lifetime accomplishments. 

One of my many favorite illustrations is a two-page nighttime scene.  Along the bottom of the pages are rolling sandy and rocky hills.  There are hints of desert flora on these hills.  On the left side, near a bush or perhaps a cactus, Edith sits, legs outstretched and leaning on her arms behind her.  Her head is tilted up.  The deep blue sky is filled with red, pink, blue, purple and white stars along with a crescent moon.  Etched in the stars, in white, are city buildings.  Edith wished to leave the desert and live in a big city. 

Readers will certainly be inspired when reading Dressing Up The Stars: The Story of Movie Costume Designer Edith Head written by Jeanne Walker Harvey with illustrations by Diana Toledano.  From gathering scraps of fabric by going door to door in a tiny desert town to making costumes for famous actors and actresses in Hollywood, this woman rose to the top through perseverance.  There is a list of books and websites as resources at the end of this title.  You will want to place a copy of this fascinating biography in your professional and personal collections.

To learn more about Jeanne Walker Harvey and Diana Toledano and their other work, please access their websites by following the link attached to their names.  Jeanne Walker Harvey has accounts on Pinterest and Twitter.  Diana Toledano has accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter.  At the publisher's website, you can download some activity sheets and view interior images as well as the dust jacket. The cover reveal with author and illustrator conversations is at John Schu's Watch. Connect. Read.  The book trailer premiered at KidLitTV.  This title with interviews is highlighted at author Erin Dealey's site, Geeks Out, Mutually Inclusive, and Alfred Hitchcock Master.

Sometimes, we become our best selves because we are enveloped by it for as long as we can remember.  It is a part of every moment of our lives.  It is fostered by those we love and who love us.  Only the Best: The Exceptional Life and Fashion of Ann Lowe (Chronicle Books, October 18, 2022) written by Kate Messner and Margaret E. Powell with illustrations by Erin K. Robinson chronicles the growth of Ann Lowe into a remarkable talent.  Her hard work, in the face of unjust odds, sets her apart and cements her place in history.

In a stately Alabama

mansion, women in bright dresses

twirl before a mirror.

Their gowns glow like moonlight---

glimmering fabrics and 

the soft sheen of pearls. 

In another part of town, a ball has begun.  It is here those gowns worn by those women swirl around the dance floor.  Away from the festivities, a young girl wanders in a garden marveling at the perfection of its flowers.  She dreams of forming this perfection from fabric.  

Inside, in a shop, Ann's grandmother and mother sew gowns from rolls of fabric.  She gathers the scraps, making blossoms from cloth.  Her mother teaches her to make dresses and gowns from brown paper patterns.  She learns how to finish each creation with flare and precision.

As New Year's Eve approaches one year, Ann's mother becomes ill and passes away.  Ann hides her sorrow and finishes all those gowns for all those ladies.  A year passes and Ann is on her way to Florida to sew for a wealthy family.  Soon, Tampa is talking about the one-of-a-kind dresses made by Ann.  Ann dreams of seeing her dresses in fashion magazines.  Knowing she needs to learn more, she heads to New York City.

Studying at the S. T. Taylor School in Manhattan is hard for a Black student.  Working alone in a separate room, Ann flourishes and completes the course with honors.  Returning to Florida, she works even more, saving for her own shop.  Still frustrated, Ann returns to New York City, asking for work in the most prestigious shop.  Ann simply won't take no for an answer.  She completes a dress, returns to the shop, and that same day her dress is sold.

Ann's work at the shop is impeccable and highly prized.  She is asked to make the wedding gown for Jacqueline Bouvier and the dresses for her party.  A week before the wedding, disaster strikes.  Ann is not deterred.  She is determined to deliver the gown and dresses herself.  Yet again, she finds herself relegated to second-class status.  This is simply not Ann.  This is simply not the best.  Did she prevail?

Through the writing of Kate Messner and Margaret E. Powell, the magic felt by those who wore Ann Lowe's designs and that magic she lovingly sewed into them is brought fully to life.  Lyrical text filled with highly descriptive places and times fashions an intimate portrait for readers.  Repetition of words and phrases draws us into the story with its cadence.  The knowledge these authors have garnered from their study and research is evident in the facts folded into the narrative.  Here is a passage.

Ann folds up her feelings and

tucks away her tears.  She works

day and night, the way her mother

taught her.  Only the best will do.

Measure, snip, pin up the hems.

Thread the needle.

Pull the stitch tight.

Embroider the last lovely bloom. 

In a word, the images by Erin K. Robinson are enchanting.  The pattern of a blue-hued background with shades of pink and purple flowers amid greenery extends from the front, across the spine, and to the far left edge.  The looping ribbon ties the two portions together.  Elegantly seated in a chair, Ann Lowe is beneath the three words which guided her work.  The three word main title text and three circular designs are varnished. 

The book case takes the pattern from the back of the dust jacket and uses it for the back of the case.  This pattern continues in a mirror image on the front of the case.  The ribbon shown on the jacket remains along the bottom on both sides of the case.  There is the addition of the larger circular element shown on the jacket to the curve made by the ribbon on both the front and back of the book case.  (If this is fabric designed by Ann Lowe, any person wearing it would feel heavenly.)

A pale cream infused with hints of pink covers the opening and closing endpapers.  There is a textured hint of flowers on a vine close to the bottom of the pages.  We see scissors, needle and thread and a dressmaker's form within this artwork along with leaves and those circular elements.  The verso and title pages are joined by two pink ribbons.  A floral arrangement frames the four corners of the text on the title page.

Rendered

digitally in Procreate

each page turn reveals another double-page visual (or a few single-page pictures) certain to envelope readers.  We feel as though we are intertwined into the fabric of Ann Lowe's life.  We are there as she walks in the garden as a child.  We are there when she makes flowers from fabric scraps.  We are there, looking down on her and her mother, as she learns to make and use patterns.  We are there as she watches Jacqueline Kennedy's gown billow about her on her wedding day.  We are there when she sews wherever and whenever she can.  Erin K. Robinson uses texture, pattern, light and shadow to great effect.

One of my many favorite illustrations is a double-page picture.  It is when Ann's mother is teaching her to cut patterns.  The color palette is a soothing selection of peach shades, pale blue, pale green, and a warm gray.  The fabric on the table before the mother and daughter is enlarged to fill the left side.  There they are placed as if we are looking down on them.  Their hands are on the table with the fabric and brown paper patterns.  A pair of scissors awaits use.  This is a tender moment of a mother's hand on her child's hand, guiding them.  An enlarged ribbon loops through the top and bottom of the visual.

Learning of this woman's life through reading Only the Best: The Exceptional Life and Fashion of Ann Lowe written by Kate Messner and Margaret E. Powell with illustrations by Erin K. Robinson will leave you in awe of her resolve.  At the close of the book is a two-page Author's Note.  This is followed by Quotations in Order of Events (two and one half pages) upon which portions of this book are based.  This is followed by a one and one-half page bibliography.  Your picture book biography collections, professional and personal, will be strengthened by containing a copy of this title.

To learn more about Kate Messner and Erin K. Robinson and their other work, please follow the link attached to their names to access their current websites.  Sadly, Margaret E. Powell passed away in 2019.  Here is a link to a guest post she did on Kate's site in 2017.  Her Twitter account is still active.  Kate Messner has accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.  Erin K. Robinson has an account on Instagram.  

In Their Footsteps #2

On April 7, 2022 the nomination by President Joe Biden of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the United States Supreme Court was confirmed in the United States Senate.  There is cause for jubilation as she is the first Black woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court.  Out of 115 justices serving on the Supreme Court in history, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson will be the sixth woman (and 116th justice).  Upon her swearing into office, another marker in history will be met.  For the first time in the 233-year history of the Supreme Court, four women will serve together.  

Women's History Month 2022 may have concluded one week ago, but April 7, 2022 and other accomplishments by women are to be celebrated as often as possible.  Nellie Vs. Elizabeth: Two Daredevil Journalists' Breakneck Race around the World (Calkins Creek, an imprint of Astra Books For Young Readers, February 15, 2022) written by Kate Hannigan with illustrations by Rebecca Gibbon is an account of an incredible journey when you consider the historical period in which it took place and at that time women in the United States did not even have the right to vote!

"Here is a race around the globe

between two young women

who make no pretense to athletics,

but who have been blessed with

indomitable pluck and

high intellectual endowments."

-----Atchison Daily Globe (Atchison, Kansas) Saturday, November 23, 1889

When we are introduced to Nellie and Elizabeth in the first few sentences, we immediately see them as opposites.  Nellie is a reporter known for doing almost anything to get a story.  As a magazine writer, Elizabeth is much quieter, more solemn.

One night, Nellie gets an idea.  Jules Verne's Around The World in Eighty Days is a huge hit with readers.  Nellie will do the same thing in seventy-five days!  At first those making decisions at the newspaper think the idea is ludicrous, but then they realize this story may bring in a lot of money.  Nellie leaves on November 14, 1889 on a steamship and discovers she gets seasick.

Later that evening, Elizabeth's editor calls her with a proposal.  He wants her to do the same thing in the opposite direction.  She is flabbergasted!  She has guests coming!  Elizabeth boards a train for California that day.

We are told where each of the women are on days five and six and seven and eight.  Now Elizabeth is seasick crossing the Pacific Ocean and Nellie takes a side trip to meet Jules Verne in France.  We are updated on their status on days 32, 36, 39, and 55.  Guess who buys a new dress and who buys a monkey?

By day 63, Nellie is crossing the Pacific Ocean amid storms.  You will not believe who the sailors blame for this misfortune.  Elizabeth is about to take a steamship from France to head to the United States.  Both believe they will arrive in New York on January 26, 1890.  One arrives earlier and the other is a week later.  One is cheered by thousands and the other is not.  Readers will realize the truth of these two voyages, this race, when the final sentence is read.  Women are remarkable, especially when they face adversity.

From the beginning, author Kate Hannigan starts to build contrast which grows day by day into tension and heightened anticipation.  Once both women have set about their travels, her technique of telling us where they are at intervals with numbered days is captivating.  Her inclusion of specific details adds to the realism.  Quotations from newspaper articles, Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland add to the fascinating narrative of these two brave women.  Here is a passage.

Day 39

Nellie's newspaper started a contest to guess her finishing time, and

thousands of entries flooded the newsroom.  The whole world seemed

to be following the breakneck race between the two journalists!

                                            Except one person . . .

(The next few sentences might shock you as they did me.)

Look at the determination, courage, and speed at which both women address this race against time and each other as evidenced by their facial expressions and body postures on the right side of the open and matching dust jacket and book case. Placing them on the planet with a blue sky and wispy clouds as a background is an excellent design choice.  The color for the spine and left side of the jacket and case is a golden yellow.

On that jacket and case is a spiral of squares looking somewhat like a board game. (There is a reason for this revealed later.)  In the upper, right-hand corner stand Nellie and Elizabeth.  The squares alternate between turquoise, pink, and red.  Sometimes, there is simply a yellow space.  In the squares are representations of modes of travel and places of interest the two visited.  In the center it shows one arriving by train and the other arriving by steamship to New York City.

The opening endpapers are a bright blue.  The closing endpapers are a magenta hue of pink.  The title page shows the duo, one each running off the left and the right sides, respectively.  All we can see is a portion of their body, skirts flying and their shoes lifted to race.

These illustrations by Rebecca Gibbon were 

done with acrylic inks & colored pencil on acid-free cartridge paper.

Full-color images replete with fine lines and exquisite elements will have readers pausing at each page turn.  Rebecca Gibbon makes sure we understand the personalities of each woman.  Her pictures are single pages with an abundance of white space, single pages, edge to edge, and groups of smaller illustrations to indicate the passage of time.  These make the two double-page pictures more dramatic.

One of my many favorite illustrations is when Nellie is in Japan.  It is day 55 in her travels.  The entire scene is in blue and white.  It mirrors the Willow Pattern and the associated legend.  It enhances the quote from Nellie Bly perfectly.

Readers will be actively engaged from beginning to end of Nellie Vs. Elizabeth: Two Daredevil Journalists' Breakneck Race around the World written by Kate Hannigan with illustrations by Rebecca Gibbon.  When you think about the types of transportation they used, what they did is amazing. At the close of the book are a two pages author's note with photographs, a two-page Timeline Of Women Investigative Journalists, followed by an illustrator's note, bibliography of books, newspapers and magazines, and acknowledgements.  I highly recommend this title for your professional and personal bookshelves.

To learn more about Kate Hannigan and Rebecca Gibbon and their other work, please follow the link attached to their names to access their websites. Kate Hannigan has accounts on Instagram and Twitter.  Rebecca Gibbon has an account on Instagram.  Kate Hannigan speaks about this book in a post at the Nerdy Book Club.  At Penguin Random House, you can view interior images.

In 2015 during Black History Month, President Barack Obama in a speech at the White House talked about a painting titled Resurrection placed in the Old Family Dining Room.  It was painted by Alma Thomas.  It is the first painting by an African American woman to be placed in the White House Collection.  This book, Ablaze with Color: A Story Of Painter Alma Thomas (Harper, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, February 22, 2022) written by Jeanne Walker Harvey with illustrations by Loveis Wise, chronicles her life and her approach to life through art.  This narrative and its resplendent artwork shine like the woman they showcase.

Through color, I have sought to concentrate

on beauty and happiness, rather than man's

inhumanity to man.---Alma Thomas (1970)

Alma loved being outside.  She inhaled all the colors in her world like everyone else breathes air.  She never liked to sit still, but preferred being a creator.  Other women in her family made things, too, filling her home with happy hues.  

Alma and her sisters' sadness came from being unable to attend the white school or visit the public library and museums.  Her parents brought books and educators into their home to fill in those gaps.  When Alma was fifteen her family left the south with its 

injustices

 and moved to Washington, DC to a home where Alma lived for many years. 

After completion of studies in art, Alma wanted to bring what she had learned to the children of Washington DC.  Schools there were still segregated, so she taught the children in her home.  Also, most of her time was spent educating these children in her community through field trips, art clubs, and even installing an art gallery, the first of its kind, in a school.

After all her years in art education serving children, nearing seventy years old, Alma Thomas began to focus on her own art.  Her new style of painting embraced bold, bright, beautiful color displayed through brushstrokes making lines, circles, and shapes mesmerizing in their intricate arrangements.   What was in her mind and heart found its way into her artwork.  Her artwork was featured as the 

first solo show by a Black woman

at the Whitney in New York City.  This was just the beginning for the work of this extraordinary woman, Alma Thomas.

Meticulously-researched word by meticulously-researched word, Jeanne Walker Harvey builds the life of Alma Thomas for readers.  We understand the foundation upon which her life was built through discussions of her parents.  Our admiration grows for her page by page as we are told of her dedication to the children in her community.  Everything she does is framed by the historical period in which she lived and worked.  We are told how barriers did not define her.  (To think that only a little more than sixteen years of her life were for her art is astounding.)  Here is a passage.

She fell back on the grass

beneath popular trees

and gazed at quivering yellow leaves

that whistled in the wind.

Alma waded in the blue hues of a brook

and basked in the warm glow of sunsets.

I don't know about you, but when I look at the front, right, and back, left, of the open dust jacket, I want to dance and laugh.  How wonderful that Alma Thomas's style of painting frames her as she paints the title text.  To the left of the spine, we are brought close to a portion of one of her paintings with lines on the right side.  Both of these visuals vibrate with shades of expressed joy.  Portions of both the front and the back are varnished.

You will be hard pressed not to gasp at the sight of the book case.  Spanning both the left and right sides is a series of circles, centered at the spine, in hues of pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple.  Each is made with Alma Thomas's signature brushstrokes.  

The opening and closing endpapers are a dark bright pink.  On the title page, the same text as shown on the dust jacket is framed by a series of circles on a crisp white background.  Prior to the narrative beginning, Alma is shown painting a large canvas.  This has a wide border around it in colorful shapes.  She stands below the first above-noted quote.

For this book by Loveis Wise 

used Adobe Photoshop to create the digital illustrations.

Each double-page picture, full-page image and full-page image framed in white reaches out and wraps around the reader.  We become a part of the pictorial interpretation of the narrative.  Every visual feels alive.

One of my many favorite illustrations is a double-page picture.  The background is dark, nearly black, but textured with other colors.  Spanning nearly both pages, right crossing the gutter to the left, is one of Alma Thomas's paintings.  It is bright yellow with circles and lines in reds, greens, blues, and white.  On the far left, in the lower corner, stands Alma painting.  She is wearing a brightly colored dress, glasses, and white shoes.  She is smiling.

Her life choices as shown to us in Ablaze with Color: A Story Of Painter Alma Thomas written by Jeanne Walker Harvey with artwork by Loveis Wise was to teach joy and spread joy through art education and art.  It was never her goal to be the first of anything, but she was, which is beautiful and most well-deserved.  At the close of the book are an author's note, illustrator's note, a timeline comparing Alma's life with historical moments in the United States, and lists of sources, notes, and references.  You most definitely will want a copy of this book in your professional and personal collections.

To learn more about Jeanne Walker Harvey and Loveis Wise and their other work, please visit their websites by following the link attached to their names.  Jeanne Walker Harvey has accounts on Pinterest and Twitter.  Loveis Wise has accounts on Behance, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.  At the publisher's website is an educators' guide.  The cover reveal is hosted by librarian and writer John Schu at his blog, Watch. Connect. Read.  This title is highlighted at The Children's Book Review and School Library Journal, The Classroom Bookshelf.

To Touch The Names

Jan Scruggs, a Vietnam War veteran, had a dream.  On March 26, 1982 the ground was officially broken after more than three years of tireless efforts by many like-minded people.  A dedication was held on November 13, 1982; this year, 2017, marking the 35th anniversary.  More than 275,000 individuals donated funds to contribute to the more than eight million dollars raised in the private sector to build this architectural masterpiece visited by more than three million people each year.  (Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund: Founders Of The Wall)

One gifted woman used talents honed from childhood to make this dream a reality.  Maya Lin: Artist-Architect Of Light And Lines: Designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (Christy Ottaviano Books, Henry Holt and Company, May 2, 2017) written by Jeanne Walker Harvey with illustrations by Dow Phumiruk tells her extraordinary story.  Her singular perspectives are a beautiful blend of art and architecture.

In the woods by her childhood home, Maya Lin played with her brother and explored and climbed the many rolling hills, one she named Lizard's Back.

Nature was her sanctuary.  While in the woods she would become one with her surroundings, observing all living things.  At home the same feeling she found outside was continued inside.

Maya's creativity was allowed to flourish and her intellectual pursuits, like chess games with her brother, were encouraged.  Her parents, her father as a potter and her mother as a poet, devoted their lives to art.  By the time Maya was in college her fascination with buildings, their structure, construction materials and design, grew.  She felt a calling to seek a career in the world of architecture.

In the fall of 1980 a "blind" contest to design a memorial for the women and men who died or are missing in action from serving in the Vietnam War was entered by Maya.  She was in her senior year at Yale University.  She visited the proposed site for the memorial, envisioning how the earth would be cut creating an opening from which the memorial would rise.  The design needed to include nearly (and now more) than 58,000 names.

To her own surprise and the surprise of many others, out of 1,421 entrants, Maya's proposition was chosen.  For a variety of reasons, the design met with controversy but Maya felt strongly about the concept and stood firm in her beliefs.  Anyone today can visit The Wall formed from reflective black granite spread across land in Constitution Gardens just as Maya Lin knew it should look.  Since that time Maya Lin has envisioned and made other works of art, giving each one a name.


What author Jeanne Walker Harvey does for readers in telling Maya Lin's story is to bring us full circle by allowing us to see the world as Maya Lin did as a child and as she does today.  She presents to us, through simple sentences, how Maya's home environment and parents contributed to her mindset in making art which is an extension of the natural world.  Within those nearly poetic lines her research is evident in the details.  Here is a sample passage.

Back at school, Maya sculpted a model with mashed potatoes, then with clay.

She sketched a soft space of greens and blues.
And before mailing her entry,
she put her thoughts into an essay.

She wrote that her long, polished wall
would be a quiet place to remember
all those who died during the war.

A place to be experienced
by walking down, then up past names
that seemed to go on forever.


As you gaze at the matching, opened dust jacket and book case of this title you are transported to Washington, D. C.  You are standing next to Maya Lin as her hand reaches out to touch one of the more than 58,000 names.  The college senior is looking at her reflection in her first massive memorial, completed and waiting in silence for visitors.  You can't help but be emotionally moved by this image extending across the spine and back of the jacket and case, especially when you know Maya's story and what this memorial represents.

The opening and closing endpapers are done in the same leaf green as seen on the jacket and case, carrying the theme of Maya's love of the natural world.  On the title page is a portrait of adult Maya, looking at the reader, as she draws at her desk.  The verso and first page contain a large picture of Maya and her brother running along the top of a hill into the woods.  The hill, she named Lizard's Back, contains a faint illustration of a lizard in the green of the grass.

Delicate elements with intricate details fill the two page, single page and small images rendered by Dow Phumiruk in Adobe Photoshop with scans of watercolors and textures.  She often frames two pages with those items being discussed in the narrative; tiny towns built by Maya, ceramics fashioned by her father or small replications of her other memorials or sculputures.  The layout and design supplied by Phumiruk generate peace and calm throughout the text.

One of my many favorite illustrations is when Maya is a little girl.  It spans two pages.  She is seated on a large rock in a clearing in the forest.  Tree branches and tree trunks frame the picture.  We are looking down on her as she looks up at a flying bird.  Another bird sits in a nest with babies.  A rabbit, chipmunks, squirrels and raccoons can be seen.  She is completely content; so are the woodland creatures with her presence.


Maya Lin: Artist-Architect Of Light And Lines: Designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial written by Jeanne Walker Harvey with illustrations by Dow Phumiruk is a lovely portrait of a remarkable woman.  Readers can't help but be inspired by Maya Lin's passion for giving her imagination the freedom it needs to explore possibilities.  You need to have a copy of this title on your professional bookshelves.  An Author's Note with additional resources concludes the book.

To discover more about Jeanne Walker Harvey and Dow Phumiruk and their other work please visit their websites by following the links attached to their names.  They both maintain blogs here and here.  Dow Phumiruk has an account on Instagram.  Dow Phumiruk is featured at KidLit 411.  If you visit the publisher's website you can view interior images.  This is a link to Maya Lin's website.  You will enjoy viewing some videos with Maya Lin here at Makers.  They have important things to say.

Be sure to check out the other titles selected by bloggers participating in the 2017 Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge hosted by educator Alyson Beecher at Kid Lit Frenzy.