& Wonderful

Wideness & Wonder: the life and art of Georgia O'Keeffe by Susan Goldman Rubin
San Francisco : Chronicle Books, c2010.
117 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 22 cm.

One of the things I love about biographies for young people is that they are often short, vivid, compelling and not overwrought with insignificant detail.  I found this biography of Georgia O'Keeffe to be a beautiful introduction to the painter.

The book is handsomely designed with many lovely reproductions and photos that bring alive O'Keeffe's long and productive life of painting.  I think the thing that I really enjoyed was how the book conveys just how new and avant garde the work of O'Keeffe was at the time she was creating it.  Her work seems so accessible and mainstream now, but there really was nothing like it when she was painting.  Her mix of stunning color, expressionist vision, realism, and large scale focus on the single simple subject are all really amazing.

I also appreciate how the biography both pays tribute to O'Keeffe as a trailblazing woman artist, but focuses on her mainly as an innovative, interesting and successful American artist.  The biography pulls together a great deal of interesting information - her early farm years in Wisconsin, her teaching experience in rural Texas, her time at the Art Institute of Chicago, and of course her productive years in New York City and New Mexico (where the O'Keeffe Museum is located)

Home at Heart

Feels Like Home by e.E. Charlton-Trujillo
New York : Delacorte Press, c2007.
213 p. ; 22 cm.

I wanted to read this novel before the author, e.E. Charlton-Trujillo came to our school for the second time this October. I was glad I picked it.  It's a bit of a throw-back novel, in a sweet way.  There's no aliens, zombies, dystopian overlords, fights to the death, or raunchy sexual situations. What there is, is an homage to S.E. Hinton's 1967 classic, The Outsiders and an homage to the small-town outsider - an outsider with heart and brains and the determination to go on to bigger things.

It's a good old-fashioned drama - with grief for lost parents and family and grief for a past that is no more - all told though the viewpoint of a teen girl who is trying to come to terms with the past and with a brother who has let her down.

It's not a fast novel or a flashy novel, but it's a good, solid read.

Additionally, the author is a wonderful guest to have at a high school. She is passionate about writing, about connecting with young people, and about living a life of art and connection.  She's great with students and I'll be encouraging kids to check out her books and be looking forward to reading her latest novel, the award-winning, Fat Angie.

Solid Gone

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
New York : Broadway Books, [2014]
422 p. ; 21 cm.

Publisher's Weekly describes Flynn's Gone Girl as the "tale of a marriage gone toxically wrong" which "gradually emerge[s] through alternating accounts by Nick and Amy, both unreliable narrators in their own ways."  I couldn't have said it better myself - so I won't!  Booklist calls it a "compelling thriller and a searing portrait of marriage" which it is, though I'd say it's a pretty twisted and horrible portrait to be sure.  Booklist does note that Flynn "possesses a disturbing worldview, one considerably amped up by her twisted sense of humor." That is definitely true.

Almost all reviews note that it is compulsively readable and I have to agree.  But it does present a rather sordid and extreme view of human relationships and has some pretty crude generalizations about men, women and their interactions.

I think the strength of the book is the plotting (which is creative and unpredictable) and the use of the unreliable narrators - which keeps the reader guessing and on edge.  

Anyone working with young adults should be aware that though there is not a lot of graphic sex in the novel,  sexual situations are frequently referred to - and occasionally described in very explicit and crude terms.  It's definitely a novel for mature readers, but there will be a lot of requests for the book given its phenomenal success and the successful movie version of it which opened the day I finished the book, Oct. 3, 2014.

The title of this post is a nod to a Carter family song - and it's wonderful performance by the late Doc Watson.