Maira Kalman

Maira Kalman is an illustrator, an artist with a whimsical eye for the stuff of everyday life. "And The Pursuit of Happiness" is basically a book of her richly colored, Matisse-ish art with a sprinkling of commentary about American life and governmental functions. That sounds a bit dull, and I feel ashamed of myself for not being able to put it better, because nothing about Kalman - her personality,her art, or her writing - is in any way dull. On the contrary, she brings a delightfully fresh show more perspective to everything in this book - from the sewage plant in Greenpoint, Brooklyn ("And there is no smell. WHAT?") to the Jell-o Mold Competition (also in Brooklyn) "run by this ENTERPRISING, BEAUTIFUL WOMAN in a GREEN JACKET and YELLOW BLOUSE", to the complexities of Thomas Jefferson's character ("Imagine the elegant evenings of brilliant discourse and fine wine and the best of everything. Thomas playing the violin, Martha playing the pianoforte. Alongside that, evening of endless labor and deprivation and freezing in pitifully small rooms, each on of which housed an ENTIRE FAMILY. Jefferson was a kinder master than most. And he was greatly conflicted.")

I loved the gentleness of this book, and I loved Kalman's ability to see beyond complexity to simplicity, and beyond simplicity to complexity. And most of all, I loved her deceptively primitve, brilliantly colored art, which I cannot help but think is a direct expression of the artist herself - who knows what to look at when she travels, sees a glorious pageant of wonder and excitement in the most simple things, and knows how to convey it to her readers. show less

Commissioned in 1931, the John J. Harvey was the sleekest and fastest fireboat of its day, racing around New York City to put out fires. After many years of service it was retired, and was due to be scrapped when a group of friends purchased it, refurbished it, and had it declared a historical landmark. No one expected that it would ever be used to fight fires again. Then, on September 11th, 2001, New York City was attacked and the water pipes around the Twin Towers were damaged. Suddenly show more the John J. Harvey was needed again...

Beautifully written and illustrated, Fireboat: The Heroic Adventures of the John J. Harvey had me tearing up on more than one occasion. I was already familiar with the amazing story of the many boats that came to the aid of the people trapped in lower Manhattan on that day, ferrying over 500,000 people to safer locations in New Jersey, Connecticut and elsewhere in New York state in the largest maritime rescue in history. My mother was on one of those boats, and ended up in New Jersey. There's a powerful documentary about it, BOATLIFT - An Untold Tale of 9/11 Resilience, that I recommend. That said, the story of the John J. Harvey was unknown to me, and I am glad to have learnt about it through author/illustrator Maira Kalman's wonderful book. The text was understated but emotionally resonant, the artwork powerful. Recommended to those seeking children's books about 9/11, and about the resilience of the human spirit. show less

A young boy asks his sister Lulu to tell him stories in this quirky bedtime book from author/illustrator Maira Kalman. Lulu obliges, sharing a number of seemingly random story snippets, all humorous, some related. The wacky behavior of relatives at parties (attendees without pants!), the magical things that various people see (flying fish!), the odd behavior of animals (ordering dinner at restaurants!) - all are covered here. There's even a story snippet about a dog-poet named Max, who longs show more to run off to Paris...

Originally published in 1988, and then reprinted this past year (2017) by the New York Review Children's Collection, Hey Willy, See the Pyramids is an engaging, oddball comedy of a picture-book. It gives the impression, with its format of story snippets, of dipping into a narrative pool - one is never completely submerged in any given story, but is kept entertained by all. I appreciated the brief glimpse of Max the dog-poet, who would appear two years later in his own book, Max Makes a Million, and its various sequels. I also enjoyed the artwork, with its vivid color palette, and its many stylized figures. The completely black pages, on which the boy asks his sister questions, or requests more stories, make an interesting visual interlude between various sections of the book. Recommended to Maira Kalman fans, and to anyone looking for picture-books featuring brothers and sisters, and/or the storytelling process. show less

I am a big fan of the art of Maira Kalman. Her style is unmistakable – she is a cartoon artist, painter, writer, and journalist who is at once whimsical, colorful, and witty, and a delight for both the eye and the intellect. She is especially known for her “visual reporting” as well as her iconic covers for the "New Yorker" magazine. She combines realism with fantasy and commentary all in the same pictures, bringing to mind artists as diverse as Ludwig Bemelmans and Marc Chagall, and show more yet she is always identifiable as herself.

The book features original gouache paintings of objects selected by Kalman from among pieces in a Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum exhibition on design. The author observes:

“Everything around you is designed. Your sneakers, our toothbrush, your toilet (yes!) and even our pencil.”

She demonstrates this by going through the alphabet, but not in a way you would expect. She doesn’t let the imperatives of the locations of letters in words define her choices; sometimes they appear first, but sometimes they don't. She starts out with A but the iconoclastic Kalman points out the A inside two words:

“...perhAps you should put on your thinking cAp….”

Similarly when she uses E, she shows us a dog and writes:

"E. (Except for YOUR DOG)
This is the cutest dog on EARTH with The Cutest EYEBROWS on EARTH."

For H she declares

H. This is not a Hippo. This is a RHINOCEROS.

Under J she writes:

“...just because you don’t like to comb your hair, that doesn’t mean you should throw out your COMB. That would be JUST NOT RIGHT.”

N is for toilet:

“NOW might be a Good Time to go the bathroom. No worries. We will wait for you. NOT A PROBLEM.”

And thus she proceeds to display items from the Hewitt exhibition.

Evaluation: I love books for kids that encourage them to think outside of the box. This book entertains and educates, all while breaking “the rules.” Kids and adults alike will be delighted. show less