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faeriedrumsong 's review for:
The Sign Painter
by Allen Say
This picture book is difficult for me to rate, because I just don't get it. The images are absolutely beautiful, to be sure, aand the beginning of the story seems like it is going somewhere, and then it just...doesn't.
A young boy arrives in a town, proves to the local sign painter that he is a good artist, and the two of them get a commission to paint billboards in the desert. The illustrations of the people and the landscapes are both well done and they invite one to browse them and imagine the silence of the desert.
Then, they randomly find out something mysterious about the company that has hired them. I'm not being cryptic, here, I really don't understand what I read. So there is a roller coaster in the middle of a desert with an empty housing community in its shadow. They discover this right after the last billboard is destroyed in a storm, and the woman whose face they've been painting almost runs them over while traveling in the other direction.
Not every story has to have a moral or a meaning. But this story seems as if it does have one in there somewhere, but it is too exalted for my unrefined mind to understand.
The final image is another very beautiful one of the boy staring into a very recognizable diner from a very recognizable painting (A quick google search identifies this as Nighthawks by Hopper). Yes, most people will see the familiarity, but I don't get the reference to this story, as New York (the supposed setting of the painting) is nowhere near a desert.
The publishers summary says "An assignment to paint a large billboard in the desert changed the life of an aspiring artist."
I really didn't see any "life changing" happen.
For an art lover who wants to share some lovely images with a child, this book would work just fine. Those who do not like ambiguity when dealing with the limitless questions of children might want to steer clear.
A young boy arrives in a town, proves to the local sign painter that he is a good artist, and the two of them get a commission to paint billboards in the desert. The illustrations of the people and the landscapes are both well done and they invite one to browse them and imagine the silence of the desert.
Then, they randomly find out something mysterious about the company that has hired them. I'm not being cryptic, here, I really don't understand what I read. So there is a roller coaster in the middle of a desert with an empty housing community in its shadow. They discover this right after the last billboard is destroyed in a storm, and the woman whose face they've been painting almost runs them over while traveling in the other direction.
Not every story has to have a moral or a meaning. But this story seems as if it does have one in there somewhere, but it is too exalted for my unrefined mind to understand.
The final image is another very beautiful one of the boy staring into a very recognizable diner from a very recognizable painting (A quick google search identifies this as Nighthawks by Hopper). Yes, most people will see the familiarity, but I don't get the reference to this story, as New York (the supposed setting of the painting) is nowhere near a desert.
The publishers summary says "An assignment to paint a large billboard in the desert changed the life of an aspiring artist."
I really didn't see any "life changing" happen.
For an art lover who wants to share some lovely images with a child, this book would work just fine. Those who do not like ambiguity when dealing with the limitless questions of children might want to steer clear.