Art Is Life!

: The Life of Artist Keith Haring by Tami Lewis

Brown (review)

Elizabeth Bush

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, Volume 74, Number 3, November
2020, p. 124 (Review)

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/bcc.2020.0738

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/770778

[ Access provided at 22 May 2021 08:05 GMT from the University of Connecticut ]
124 • The Bulletin

that vindicated the Lovings. He then segues in final chapters to the impact Loving
v. Virginia had on defending the right to non-heterosexual marriage, a separate
but closely related battle that ultimately cited that precedent to secure marriage
equality to couples regardless of gender. Readers may briefly wonder why, after the
first chapters, so little attention is paid to the Lovings themselves, but in keeping
the couple in the background, where they chose to be (they did not attend the
Supreme Court session), Brimner respects the privacy they valued and allows their
courageous doggedness to speak for itself. Black and white photographs, multimedia
bibliographies, source notes, and an index are included. EB

Brown, Tami Lewis Art Is Life!: The Life of Artist Keith Haring; illus. by Keith
Negley. Farrar, 2020 [48p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9780374304249 $19.99
Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 2-5
Aspiring teen artist Keith Haring attended a presentation on Christo’s miles of fabric
wall and determined, “The public needs art.” This wasn’t merely a comment on
Christo’s innovative work but on the reaction of the audience as they warmed to
a startling new idea. Brown’s picture book biography, which hits most of the same
highlights and milestones as Kay A. Haring’s Keith Haring: The Boy Who Just Kept
Drawing (BCCB 2/17), emphasizes the “public” in public art, keeping a steady
focus on how audiences reacted to Haring’s work—with bafflement, with legal
action, with an adoring embrace of his commercialized Pop Shop output. Negley
backs up the text with a slick trick of his own—floating clouds of multicolored
runelike figures over Haring’s head as he ponders and brainstorms his designs, and
then floating those same clouds over select viewers as they’re hit with a spark of
. . . what? Amazement? Amusement? Comprehension? Imagination? Readers will
enjoy watching the watchers, from the kid admiring a bird while perched himself
on a massive Haring sculpture, to gallery visitors barely cognizant of the trendy
works they’ve ostensibly come to see. Author and illustrator notes provide additional
biographical details and thoughts on the illustrator’s rights-limited challenge of how
to “showcase someone’s art without actually showing their art.” Lists of adult and
kid-friendly resources are also included. EB

Buxbaum, Julie Admission. Delacorte, 2020 [352p]

Trade ed. ISBN 9781984893628 $18.99
E-book ed. ISBN 9781984893642 $10.99
Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 8-10
See this month’s Big Picture, p. 117.

Carey, Anna This Is Not the Jess Show. Quirk, 2020 [304p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9781683691976 $18.99
E-book ed. ISBN 9781683691983 $9.99
Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 8-10
Seemingly average ’90s teen Jess Flynn feels increasingly trapped by her ordinary
small-town life, until peculiar things begin to occur: her friend drops a mysterious
device, half the town vanishes from a supposed flu, her dog is suddenly not her
dog, and worst, her chronically ill sister becomes inexplicably much sicker. Jess is