Georgia's Bones Book

Growing up on a Wisconsin farm, Georgia began gathering all sorts of objects — sticks and stones, flowers and bones. Although she was teased for her interest in unique shapes and sizes, young Georgia declared: “Someday, I'm going to be an artist” — and that is exactly what she became. / Jen Bryant's story of Georgia O'Keeffe celebrates the famous artist's fascination with natural shapes, “common objects,” and her unusual way of looking at the world. Bethanne Andersen's fluid, graceful illustrations capture the beauty of O'Keeffe's work and spirit.

Booklist

Gr. 2-4. Though classified as fiction, this lyrical appreciation follows the widely known arc of Georgia O'Keeffe's biography and introduces key aspects of her sensibility, including her rugged self-sufficiency and her preoccupation with "shapes and spaces." As in her novel The Trial [BKL My 1 04], which was targeted at older children, Bryant writes in spare, lyrical verse, honoring her subject's idiosyncratic impressions and precise observation of the natural world: a southwestern sun that "flung itself across the sky," clouds that seemed painted "with a milk-dipped feather." Andersen, for her part, strides bravely into O'Keeffe's considerable shadow.

Cow skulls, southwestern landscapes, and oversize flowers are present and accounted for, but the swooping brushstrokes and earthy textures are unmistakably Andersen's own. The unacknowledged mixture of history and poetic embroidery would have benefited from a clarifying endnote; Jeanette Winters' My Name Is Georgia (1998) strikes a better balance between capturing a spirit and documenting a life. Even so, this bold, beautiful rendition has a certain nonconformist flair that surely would have earned O'Keeffe's stamp of approval.