Matisse on the Loose

by Georgia Bragg

Overview

A kid. A famous painting. A cool moment. A prison sentence?

Have you ever done something you shouldn’t have? But you’re a good person and you don’t think that it’s going to cause any real harm? But then something bad happens and it turns out that you were wrong? Welcome to Matisse’s world.

Matisse has finally got the chance to come face to face with the work of his namesake, the great French painter Henri Matisse. The museum where his mom works as head of security is hosting a Matisse exhibit. Matisse thought it would be cool to hang his own artwork—a copy of a famous Matisse painting, Portrait of Pierre—on the museum wall just for a minute.

But then a tour group thinks that it’s a real Matisse. So now Matisse’s painting hangs in a museum—while the priceless original hangs on Matisse’s eccentric family’s den wall. A sixth grader should not get caught up in a museum heist. But . . . what if he does?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780375892622
Publisher:	Random House Children's Books
Publication date:	07/14/2009
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	228
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

Georgia Bragg’s father, mother, and brother are all artists, and Georgia is too. She was a printmaker, a painter, and a storyboard artist before becoming a writer. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, two children, and two cats.

Editorial Reviews

Gr 5-7–Named after the famous artist, Matisse Jones, 11, has one problem: “My family is like the sun. It’s dangerous to look right at them.” His father takes pride in his Dead Meat Catering business. His mother is head of security at the museum and wants one of her children to become an artist. Matisse’s older sister, Frida, has an obsession with purple. And the boy spends his after-school hours copying masterpieces. When his namesake’s exhibit opens, Matisse replaces the original Portrait of Pierre with his replica during a security breach. Eventually, he confesses to the owner of the painting, Pierre Matisse himself, who tells the youngster that art comes from the “couer” and advises him to trash his copies. The writing is fast paced and Matisse’s observations provide some laugh-out-loud amusement, but the characters are little more than plot elements. Overall, this novel offers a series of anecdotes about an art-loving boy dodging his mistake in a grown-up setting. The plethora of adult characters and interactions may limit the book’s appeal to avid art buffs.–Richelle Roth, Wilmington Public Library, OH

School Library Journal

Eleven-year-old narrator Matisse's mother is head of security for the local art museum, where an exhibit of Henri Matisse's paintings is scheduled at the same time as a security-system overhaul. While the alarms are turned off, Matisse (the middle child, between Frida and Man Ray) gives in momentarily to temptation, replacing his namesake's Portrait of Pierre with his own convincing copy. Events that overtake him before he can put the original back in its frame turn his childish misdeed into an inadvertent heist. Despite an occasionally choppy narrative, Matisse's voice is just right for a sixth grader who is both caught up in the misery of a potentially disastrous error and distracted by his unconventional family and his loyal but blabby friend. Several laugh-out-loud moments and a number of credulity-stretching ones make for an odd mix of realistic, humorous fiction and tall tale, by turns genuinely funny and self-consciously amusing. A very good author's note gives some background about Henri and Pierre Matisse and about the reality of art thievery. (Fiction. 8-11)

Kirkus Reviews