The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau

by Michelle Markel, Amanda Hall (Illustrator)

Overview

“The career of artist Henri Rousseau gets a wonderfully child-friendly treatment in a book that captures both his personality and the essence of his pictures.” – Booklist (STARRED REVIEW)

“Strikes just the right tone…jaunty, confiding, and affectionate.” – Publishers Weekly (STARRED REVIEW)

A whimsical, inspiring picture book biography of the legendary 19th-century artist Henri Rousseau.

Henri Rousseau wants to be an artist. Not a single person has ever told him he is talented. He’s a toll collector. He’s forty years old. But he buys some canvas, paint, and brushes, and starts painting anyway.

Vivid text from award-winning author Michelle Markel (Tomfoolery), coupled with fanciful, inspired art from illustrator Amanda Hall (How the Sea Came to Be), paint a portrait of a man who dreams, creates, and perseveres, despite harsh criticism, leading to an unlikely and brilliant success with paintings hanging in the world’s most important museums.

Includes author’s and illustrator’s notes.

A Junior Library Guild selection.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781467464161
Publisher:	Eerdmans, William B. Publishing Company
Publication date:	06/11/2012
Series:	Incredible Lives for Young Readers (ILYR)
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	40
File size:	11 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	5 - 9 Years

About the Author

Michelle Markel is the author of many children's books, includingTyrannosaurus Math (Tricycle/Random House) and Dreamer from the Village: The Story of Marc Chagall (Henry Holt). Michelle lives in California. Visit her website at www.michellemarkel.com.

Amanda Hall has illustrated a number of picture books, including The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau (Eerdmans), which won the PEN/Steven Kroll Award. Amanda lives in England. Visit her website at www.amandahall-illustration.com.
Michelle Markel is the author of many children's books,including Tyrannosaurus Math(Tricycle/Random House) and Dreamer from theVillage: The Story of Marc Chagall (Henry Holt).Michelle lives in California. Visit her website atwww.michellemarkel.com.,
Amanda Hall has illustrated over fifty award-winning books for young readers, including Out of this World (Balzer & Bray), Little Bear (Wisdom Tales), and The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau (Eerdmans). The art of How the Sea Came to Be was shaped by her reading, conversations with scientists, and explorations at London's Natural History Museum and Cambridge's Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences. Amanda works in her garden studio in Cambridge, England. Visit her website at amandahall- illustration.com.

Read an Excerpt

The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau

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By Michelle Markel

Eerdmans Books for Young Readers

Copyright © 2012 Michelle Markel
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8028-5364-6

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Chapter One

Henri Rousseau wants to be an artist. Not a single person has ever told him he is talented. He's a toll collector. He's forty years old.

But he buys some canvas, paint, and brushes, and starts painting anyway.

Why? Because he loves nature. Because when he strolls through the parks of Paris, it's like the flowers open their hearts, the trees spread their arms, and the sun is a blushing ruby, all for him.

Henri can't afford art lessons, so he has to be his own art teacher. He goes to the Louvre and examines the satiny paintings of his favorite artists.

To learn about anatomy, he studies photographs and illustrations from postcards, magazines, and catalogues.

One day Henri reads about a big art exhibition. He puts his canvases in a handcart and wheels them to the building where the show will be held. He's forty-one years old, and this is the very first time he'll display his work! He can hardly wait to hear what the experts will say.

Mean things. That's what most of them write. But Henri snips out the articles anyway, and pastes them in a scrapbook.

Henri walks around the city, gathering ideas for his pictures. He goes to the World's Fair, where a man named Eiffel has built a latticed tower of metal rising several hundred feet into the air.

What thrills Henri most are the fair's exhibits of villages from distant lands. They remind him of adventure stories he loved when he was a boy.

Days later, Henri can still picture the plants and animals from faraway places. He holds his paintbrush to the canvas. A tiger crawls out. Lightning strikes, and wind whips the jungle grass.

Sometimes Henri is so startled by what he paints that he has to open the window to let in some air.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau by Michelle Markel Copyright © 2012 by Michelle Markel. Excerpted by permission of Eerdmans Books for Young Readers. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Editorial Reviews

Hall's evocation of Rousseau's lush jungles captures the artist's child-friendly work; Markel's text is both accessible and likely to awe.

The New York Times Book Review - Pamela Paul

The career of artist Henri Rousseau gets a wonderfully child-friendly treatment in a book that captures both his personality and the essence of his pictures.” – Booklist (STARRED REVIEW)

“Strikes just the right tone…jaunty, confiding, and affectionate.” – Publishers Weekly (STARRED REVIEW)

“The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau is nothing if not smart. It typifies the kind of bios I hope we see more of in the future. And, with any luck, it will help to create the kinds of people I’d like to see more of in the future. People like Henri Rousseau. Whatta fella. Whatta book.” – Betsy Bird, A Fuse #8 Production (an SLJ blog)

“Charming” – Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

“This successful tribute makes Rousseau accessible, and inspirational, to a young audience.” –Horn Book 

“Charming, affecting…This lovely, child-friendly biography evokes and celebrates this fabulous naif.” – Kirkus Reviews 

“Tells an emboldening real-life story, and a stunningly illustrated one… absolutely wonderful from cover to cover.” – The Marginalian 

“[A] thoroughly winning account of Rousseau’s life… Hall’s evocation of Rousseau’s lush jungles captures the artist’s child-friendly work; Markel’s text is both accessible and likely to awe.” – The New York Times

“Not only a visually exciting introduction to a well-known artist, but also an uplifting model of passion and perseverance.” – School Library Journal 

From the Publisher

A charming, affecting picture-book life of France's most celebrated naive painter--Henri Rousseau. Around 1884, when he was in his 40s, Rousseau determined that he needed to transcend his life as a customs officer and began to recreate himself as an artist. Though he had no formal training and few financial resources, he persevered and created countless canvases that showcased his unique, almost magical personal visions, visions that continue to resonate with young and old alike. Rousseau was ridiculed repeatedly by critics and artists, yet he continued to create his exotic, seemingly unsophisticated paintings. His lush tropical scenes were fueled by visits to the botanic gardens; his exotic animals were inspired by visits to the zoo. Though he remained a perpetual outsider, the Parisian avant-garde eventually embraced the visionary Rousseau, honoring him at a 1908 banquet (organized by Picasso himself). Markel's simple, poetic text ("tropical plants fruit and flower into garlands, rockets, and rosettes of color") is matched with Hall's vivid, venturesome illustrations. The bright watercolor-and-acrylic paintings have an impressive vitality and wonderfully channel Rosseau's fantastic motifs and his characteristic use of flattened shapes and perspectives. This lovely, child-friendly biography evokes and celebrates this fabulous naif. (author and illustrator notes) (Picture book/biography. 5-9)

Kirkus Reviews